


The Beautiful Beast: Epilogue

by Isuvviaraq



Series: The Beautiful Beast [6]
Category: No Fandom, 陰陽師 | Onmyoji (Video Game)
Genre: Abusive Relationships, Domestic Violence, Emotional/Psychological Abuse, Fluff and Angst, Fluff and Humor, Forced Marriage, M/M, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Trauma
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-01-21
Updated: 2020-02-08
Packaged: 2021-02-27 04:53:30
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 3
Words: 21,800
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22351378
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Isuvviaraq/pseuds/Isuvviaraq
Summary: Three years after the conclusion of The Beautiful Beast
Relationships: Original Character(s) & Original Character(s), Shuten Douji (Onmyoji)/Yasha (Onmyoji), Yasha (Onmyoji)/Other
Series: The Beautiful Beast [6]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1333384
Comments: 5
Kudos: 11





	1. Chapter 1

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Two powerful demons, Shuten Doji and Yasha, share their stories of love and woe around the camp fire and a man-sized jug of sake.

“It wouldn’t be respectful, or even… really _true_ to say that I’ve ‘gotten over her,’ but… I’ve started carrying on since then. I’ve even helped Seimei out a few times since, and it’s easy because I know it was only partially his fault. That and… I still remember the way Momiji smelled after eating human flesh. Don’t get me wrong, she’s still beautiful, but… not the same. Even if she turned around and accepted my love now, I don’t think I could go through with it.”

Shuten Doji stopped and took a long pull from his jug of sake. The jug was nearly as tall as he was, and probably about half his weight, but he lifted it in one hand without difficulty. His bobbing throat stood out clear and pale against his startling mane of hair, deeper red than the fire. A drop of sake rolled from the corner of his sharp lips to the severe cut of his jaw.

Once his mouth was drenched down to the gullet, the demon lowered his jug and gasped for air, just once. Then, wiping his mouth against a wrist, he passed the jug to his companion. “So how about you, friend? What was your woman like? Would she have even _looked_ like a woman next to you?”

Yasha only smirked as he accepted the jug of sake. The question was warranted; he had chopped off all his hair a little more than a year ago, but since then it had grown back in bouncy tufts that were accidentally quite attractive. The aid of a little dye had then given his hair a hue of bloody crimson to complement Shuten Doji’s fiery scarlet. Coupled with the elaborately embroidered green yukata, he could have passed for a Cantonese madam.

“Ironically, yes,” Yasha said, and it was somewhat jarring to hear such a masculine voice issuing from one with such a lovely face. Though stronger than he looked, he used both hands to keep the jug balanced as he took a long, sweet draft of the cleaning sake. As his mouth cooled and his belly warmed, he returned the jug to the taller demon reclining on the ground beside him. “I say ironically because my… ‘bride’ was a man as well.”

Shuten Doji paused in the act of lifting the jug to his lips. He had no hair on his eyebrows, but his forehead furrowed as the as the brow muscles contracted in puzzlement. His lips shaped an o and made only the faintest of motions, as though running through the words he’d just heard. “Your bride… was a man?” he repeated aloud, mostly to himself.

“Yeah,” Yasha said simply.

Shuten Doji continued to contemplate this information without drinking, his lips now shut pensively. He looked upward and tilted his eyes one way, then the other as he rolled the notion over in his head. After a significant pause, he said, ‘So… can… no, I mean…” With the words nearly formed, Shuten Doji took a hasty swig, then readjusted his position to face Yasha a little more directly. “Okay, this might be a little forward, but… can two guys actually… _do it_ together?”

“Yes…” Yasha shut his eyes in fond recollection. The reminiscing purr in his voice left no room for doubt.

“Huh…” Shuten Doji sat back a little, staring out in impressed contemplation. His fingers drummed along the jug’s spout. Noticing his companion reaching out for the drink, he took a quick sip and passed it. After some further consideration, he began to shake his head. “It might be as you say… I mean, sure, not every sex act strictly _requires_ a female body… Still, I can’t imagine it working out. I mean, you look as much like a woman as anyone – no offense…”

“None taken.”

“… but you still have a man’s personality. I can’t imagine you acting… you know…” He waved a hand vaguely. “Like a wife?” he said, half questioning. A line of reasoning occurred to him, and he began to explore it aloud. “I mean, say a man agrees to marry. He’s still a man, right? If you get into an argument, he might decide he has as much right to be the husband as you do. If nobody can claim the final word, how does anything get settled?”

Fortunately for Yasha, the flush of shame that came to his ears was neatly settled beneath the flush of intoxication that had been reddening his cheeks for several minutes now. “That was… never really an issue with us,” he admitted quietly. “He… couldn’t get the last word if he wanted. He was human.”

This startled Shuten Doji more than learning that Yasha’s bride had been a man. He swiftly braced a hand against the ground and leaned toward him. “You didn’t!”

Unable to decide whether it was excitement or disgust that prompted this reaction, Yasha took another long draft of the sake to hide his embarrassment. Shuten Doji continued to stare penetratingly at the younger demon. Tipsy as he was, his mind was still quite shrewd. He soon started to put a few pieces together, and soon he had a hunch. “This human…”

“Sato no Hiroshi,” Yasha informed, saying the name so quietly as to be almost reverent.

The demon king blinked distractedly, then shook his head and carried on. “This ‘Hiroshi’ who you took as wife… Did he even have a choice to be your wife or not?” Yasha’s throat suddenly shut, and he was forced to put the jug down immediately. The sake suddenly tasted sour in his mouth. Shuten Doji saw the truth in Yasha’s silence and guilty countenance. With a groan, he rolled onto his back. “Fuck… You _are_ an idiot. No wonder he hates you now.”

The effeminate demon grimaced and handed back the jug. This was, of course, the crux of the bond between he and the demon king – the whole reason Shuten Doji had invited his mopey ass to sit and share a drink together; they were both despised by the person they loved.

Shuten Doji rested his palm against the side of the jug and sighed without lifting it. “How did you picture that working out, anyway? I don’t allow that sort of thing on Mt. Oe, and Takamagahara takes an even dimmer view of it – even when it’s consensual.”

Yasha sighed and leaned back against the tree behind him. “Well, I stayed in the Underworld where there was only Enma to deal with. After two days, I erected a realm beneath the Sea of the Underworld – undetectable to anyone further than six paces from it. Then it was just a matter of not telling anybody, and making sure I wasn’t followed home.”

The demon king cocked what would have been an eyebrow and tilted his face toward Yasha. “Very storybook. How long did it take him to go stir-crazy?” The fiend replied with only a self-loathing sneer. Shuten Doji shook his head. A few minutes rolled by, filled only with the twinkling of fireflies, the popping of firewood, and the hoots and rustles of night animals. Eventually, the king pushed himself back up onto an elbow and took another swig. “So getting back to my earlier question… kind of… what was he like – this human? Must have been pretty good-looking to make you act so crazy, unless you really _are_ just a fool.”

Yasha was momentarily piqued by the taller demon’s abrasive attitude, but a look at his relaxed posture showed no malice in his words. He sighed. “At the start, there was nothing so remarkable about him – not outwardly. He was just the only human around for miles, and he was a virgin. I was too, until then. That’s part of why I thought I had a right to make him my bride.”

Shuten Doji groaned painfully and dragged a palm over his face. “Damn you… I’ve known men who were old fashioned in their thinking, but _that_!...” He shook his head in disgust. “That’s just primitive.” He started to take another pull of sake to cleanse his palate, then suddenly stopped and stared shrewdly the younger fiend. “Hang on. There’s no such thing as ‘just one’ human; they’re pack animals. They’ve always got family, clans, tribes, crews, or brotherhoods that they’re a member of. So what do you mean he was the ‘only one around’?”

Yasha practically cringed and avoided Shuten Doji’s eye. “It was my fault… I’d burned down his village and everyone in it about a week earlier.” He abruptly swiped back the jug and downed a few big, punishing gulps.

Shuten Doji pushed himself up higher, mouth agape. “So you…” He drew up short, at a loss for words. I occurred to him that if he had to pause the story to criticize Yasha’s every act of stupidity, they’d likely run out of moonlight first. So he contented himself to just shake his head, reclaim jug, and wave his companion onward while he took another draft.

Yasha pulled his knees up in front of him and stared into the fire while he spoke. “I was… pretty ignorant about a lot of things back then. About emotional matters especially. I knew he was angry because I’d killed people from his… ‘tribe’ or what have you, but I’d never had family or friends before. So I didn’t actually know what a critical thing that was. I thought the pain would be more like… a stab wound… when actually it was more like having a limb severed.” Shuten Doji gave a low hum. At least he’d learned _something_. Maybe there was hope for the poor dumbass.

Yasha continued, “I thought that if I took care of him, and if I was ‘steadfast and true,’ like all the old romances said, that he’d fall in love. And we would have lots of hair-raisingly good sex in the meantime.” Shuten Doji took another long gulp to drown his impulse to comment. “But… it wasn’t happening fast enough for my liking. It was easy to get him squirming with pleasure, and I made sure he came when we were having sex, but my… but Hiro-chan refused to admit that he liked it, even on just a tactile level. It irritated me, and… I didn’t do a great job controlling my frustration. On the second night, before the realm was set up, he tried to run away from me while I was sleeping. I panicked so hard that when I finally found him, all I could feel was rage. I…” He swallowed convulsively. “I beat him and raped him until he was unconscious, and he didn’t wake up for three whole days.”

The fiend cast a brief glance at his audience, saw the expression of disgust on Shuten Doji’s face, and averted his eyes. “Many other times, I just yelled at him because I thought he was being stubborn. He did become a little more affectionate eventually, but… looking back, he probably acted that way either because he was afraid of me, or he just needed to show affection to _somebody_ , and I was the only one around.”

At last, Shuten Doji decided he had to say something. “Look, are you _sure_ you liked this… Hiro person? ‘Cos so far it really isn’t sounding like it.”

Yasha gave a brittle laugh. “You’re not off the mark there… I didn’t love Hiro-chan at first. I _thought_ I did, though. I just knew that love was something that made people happy. I thought all it took was to want to love somebody and to say that you did. And I really wanted Hiro to love me. To me, I guess he was like… a pet or a piece of furniture. Like I said, he was ordinary-looking to start with – maybe just a little soft and androgynous in the face. Then after the first month, I started to acquire and feed him to soften and refine his features, until eventually he looked…” he gave another sardonic huff, “even more like a woman than me.”

Shuten Doji settled himself down onto one elbow. He watched Yasha fretfully picking at his immaculate nails, eyes swimming with remembrance.

“His hair became black as obsidian, his skin grew pale and lost all signs of blemish, the red of his lips was so eye catching that I couldn’t bear not kissing them a dozen times a day. It was exciting – even hypnotic – to watch him grow more and more beautiful each passing day. Like watching a single flower grow from a seed. I loved to just stare at him while he ate, while he slept, while he read, while he copied scrolls… until I noticed how rare it was that he smiled. The time I saw him smiling the most and the brightest was on his 20th birthday, but that was also the day we had one of our most terrible… altercations.”

Shuten Doji sensed that a juicy bit was imminent, so he offered his companion a quick swig of sake before he got any further. Yasha gratefully wet his lips with the draft, then passed the jug back and refocused his memory on the event. “That whole day, he was… different from usual. Happier. He smiled freely, laughed willingly, and bantered with me freely. He even offered to share one of the mochi I’d had made especially for him. I made it clear that it was his to eat, but…”

No tear ever touched the fiend’s cheek, but the rim of his eyelids could be seen to glisten with emotion upon that inward-stare. “I was… giddy with happiness. I felt so proud of the presents I’d brought, and all the careful plans I’d made to make the day special for him. I gave him a fan, a comb, fine scrolls, perfume, a new kimono, and so much good food… I think that was when I first started to love him for real. I would do _anything_ to give him a reason to smile like that at least once every day. Then the last present…”

Yasha reached out for the jug of sake again. The sipping gave him some time to collect his thoughts. “A few months before this, it occurred to me how short human lifespans really are. Once Hiro-chan passed 20, it would only be a few years before his youth started to leave him. So the last present I gave him that say was… a potion of longevity known as the Elixir of Life.”

Shuten Doji took another heavy gulp, eyes fixed on Yasha. He’d never heard of such a thing, but the name was impressive and… probably self-explanatory. He kept very still so as not to disturb the demon’s train of thought. Yasha certainly looked like he needed his concentration just then. He was grinding the heel of his hand against his eyes with a dark grimace.

“Do you know… Shuten Doji… I thought it would make for an interesting surprise, and so I told him that it was tea. I never imagined it could make him unhappy, and I was surprised myself when I saw his eyes turn the same color as the potion.” He sighed. “It was the most enchanting color imaginable. In spite of how disastrously that night was about to end, I predicted on the spot that I would spend hours on end staring at those eyes. They were as dazzling and majestic as the train of a peacock. No man who saw such eyes could possibly help falling in love with their owner. I was almost in a trance as I told Hiro-chan about the 200 additional years of life that went with those heart-stealing, beautiful eyes…

“His response… was to ask if there was any way to undo the effects of the potion.” Yasha broke off for a time, massaging his temples with a pained expression. “It’s like that question broke the trance that his eyes had cast. I… panicked… I could hardly imagine not having him around anymore. That was why I’d worked so hard to assemble the potion-mixer’s ingredients for him. I’d gotten so used to having Hiro-chan there to greet me when I returned from a day’s hunting. Any time I was away for more than a day, it was harder to sleep because I didn’t have him in my arms. So to me, his question was like… like saying he didn’t want to live more than a single lifespan with me. I thought I’d been taking good care of him, and I really wanted him to be as happy as he’d made me. 

“But it turns out… he was thinking about his family when he said it. He hadn’t even mentioned them in weeks. I was hoping that maybe he’d finally come to terms with them being gone. In fact, he was just… biding his time and waiting to rejoin them in the afterlife. And where he thought he’d only have to wait a bit more than 50 years before he saw them again, I had just quadrupled his waiting. I was still too ignorant to follow his line of thinking at the time, but… Just a minute earlier, he’d been so wonderfully giddy. Now he was abjectly weeping. I couldn’t deny that his feelings were sincere, even if I felt loathe to accept that I was the cause. I tried to console him, but… I was on edge for the rest of the day.

“Close to evening, I asked Hiro-chan to have sex with me, thinking it might help me relax. And it was starting to work for a while. No matter how bad I’m feeling, joining bodies with my bride always improved my mood. Then at some point, I said…”

Yasha huffed in agitation and reached for the jug again. His throat felt badly constricted, and he needed something to cool it. “I don’t even remember _what_ it was I said back then. Whatever it was, though, it made Hiro-chan furious. He snarled at me with this tone I’d never heard before as he told me to get off and not touch him. In an instant, all the tension I’d been feeling redoubled, and I flung Hiro-chan away from me.” Yasha hid his eyes against his arm and ground his teeth together.

“I shouted at him. I pushed his head against the floor and screamed words aimed to hurt him. It took all my self-control just to keep from striking him, and soon I fled from the realm before I did some greater harm. Within minutes, my regret overwhelmed me, and I stayed out for the entire night, mulling over my own… stupidity.”

Shuten Doji tried to restrain his sympathetic instincts. After all, Yasha was definitely the author of his own suffering here. Still, it was hard not to feel some shreds of pity for that remorseful figure with his face hidden in the crook of his arm. In the end, he rested a hand on the fiend’s ankle without looking at him and offered a mumbled “idiot” without malice.

“Close to morning, I resolved that I would return to the realm and apologize to Hiro-chan,” Yasha continued, seeming not to notice the friendly hand. “But just as I started heading back, I was so distracted by my thoughts that I didn’t even notice this snake-demon bitch sneaking up on me. I only managed to kill her after she’d already bitten me. I was poisoned.

“The venom wasn’t too bad at first, but I could feel it burning worse and worse every minute. I didn’t have time to track down the medicine seller from whom I bought all of Hiro-chan’s potions. Instead, I had to spend the rest of the day tracking down a few bottles of the first, cheap sake I could find. My only hope was to try and sweat the poison out. By the time I returned to the realm…” Yasha sighed and wiped his brow with a palm. “I’d all but forgotten my intention to apologize, and I’m ashamed to admit that I continued to take out my frustrations on Hiro-chan in ways he didn’t deserve.”

“You didn’t try to sleep with him again, did you?” Shuten Doji couldn’t help but ask this question. Everyone knew demon poisons were contagious, and humans were especially susceptible.

Yasha delayed in answering. “I did my best not to even touch him. I went so far as to drag a cushion to the far side of the realm so our skin wouldn’t touch during the night. But after sleeping for less than three hours, I woke up feeling like I was in a sauna. If you were to cut my belly open at that moment, you might have burnt yourself on the steam that poured out. My limbs still burned from the venom, and the realm seemed to shake and sway around me.

“Deliriously, I crawled to find two gourds of water and drink them to the last drop. My throat was still parched, but there was no more fresh water anywhere in the realm. I began to doubt that I would make it through the night; even if I managed to sweat out the rest of the poison, I might still die of thirst. Despairing, I crawled to where Hiro-chan lay asleep. I wanted to get one last, long look at him in case… in case the poison took me.”

There was hardly any sake left in Shuten Doji’s man-sized jug by this point. Yasha’s story was turning out to contain a lot more drama than he’d expected. Still, he took another long gulp and listened attentively

“In my delirium, I suppose I must have been talking aloud while I admired him. It was… so ironic… Hiro-chan was always the weak one. The fragile one. Without my intervention, he was unlikely to last even the 50 or 80 years usual to his kind. Now, it was looking like I would be the first to go.”

Yasha broke off again. He stared for a long time into the fire with distant eyes, his lips creased in a regretful smile. Watching that calm, sad expression, Shuten Doji couldn’t help but think to himself, ‘ _It’s a damn shame he isn’t actually a woman. In spite of Momiji, I can picture myself kissing those trembling lips_.’ Slowly, he took his hand off the jug of sake and shut his eyes, deciding to just listen to the story for a while.

“So like I was saying… I must have been talking to myself while I stared at him, because I woke him up at some point. I’d hardly given any thought to his transfigured eyes since our argument the previous day, so I found them almost startlingly beautiful. They were like jewels.

“Too dizzy to be cautious, I caressed his cheek softly, and it felt… deliciously cool under my fingers. His lips quivered, his body trembled, and he sighed in a way that sounded… irresistibly sexual. In an instant, I recalled that I was Hiro-chan’s only provider – his only protector. I had become responsible for him. I had no right to die and leave him there to starve. I resolved to live and… again, I was delirious and feverish… I caught him in my arms and started making love to him.”

With his eyes closed, Shuten Doji could almost picture the scene. Blood-red Yasha and his raven-haired bride writhing on a bed of scattered mats, blankets, and pillows, clutching at each other with ever greater desperation as the fever spread through them.

“It was… incredible. Just as my strength was starting to give out, Hiro-chan took control. I’d never seen him act so dominant! Even when I was exhausted and just wanted to rest, Hiro-chan pinned me, rode me, bit me until I bled… He made me submit to him. I couldn’t have stopped him if I’d tried.” Shuten Doji released a sigh through his teeth. This part of the story was having quite an effect on him in spite of himself. “By the time we stopped, Hiro-chan’s skin was only slightly cool to the touch, but the flush of fever was fading from his brow. I had just enough sense left to cover us up with the blankets before passing out.

“The next morning, I felt good as new, besides a bad case of cottonmouth. Hiro-chan was miserable, but only because he was dehydrated, not poisoned. The previous night almost felt like a dream, but I remembered perfectly. What’s more, our bodies and bedding were still sticky. In a… perverse way… I was overjoyed. The poison had made me a little delirious, yes, but not hallucinatory. My thoughts were all still unquestionably my own. I had to assume that it had been the same for Hiro-chan. Without ever bothering to voice my apology, I took the event as confirmation that I had been forgiven.

“After that, I thought I’d finally won Hiro-chan’s heart. He was unusually quiet during the next couple days, but I assumed he might just have a few lingering traces of the snake-demon’s venom in his system. Besides, he’d never been especially talkative to begin with. I was always the one to start our conversations. It certainly didn’t stop me from looking at him more affectionately – more… protectively than ever before. I remember that one night, just a couple days after Hiro-chan’s birthday, I was awoken by the sound of my bride screaming, tormented by some awful nightmare. I held him and called his name until he woke up, and then I rubbed his back, whispering gentle reassurances. Then he… clung to me… He squeezed me as tight as his frail, human arms could squeeze, and he rubbed his face against my chest while he sobbed.

“That night, I came to the realization that love was a lot more complicated than books made it out to be. It brought happiness, yes. I was happy – or perhaps ‘grateful’ is the word – that I could hold and shelter my darling Hiro-chan, and I felt some pride that he was relying on me to hold him and keep him grounded in a moment like this. Yet, those emotions were almost buried beneath a kind of deep, throbbing pain. I wished that Hiro-chan didn’t have to feel sad or frightened to begin with. I would rather he be able to sleep soundly, even if it meant he would never again hold me quite so tightly. 

“About… oh, maybe a month later, the two of us were in the bath. Hiro-chan was even more withdrawn than usual that day, so I was starting to get worried and asked him if anything was wrong. That’s when he told me that he noticed his body hair had fallen out. Actually, I’d given him the potion to make his skin smooth and hairless the night before his birthday, so I was caught a bit off guard. I suppose it’s not really surprising that it escaped his notice. With all the excitement, I’d almost forgotten about it myself. Besides, Hiro-chan looked so natural and beautiful with smooth skin like this..

“In any case, after his reaction to the Elixir, I guessed it would be a mistake to tell the truth and tried to brush it off as something inconsequential. But Hiro-chan only got more and more worried. He thought he must have been sick, and my nonchalance was coming dangerously close to rousing his suspicion. I had no choice but to do something I’d been dreading – I’d have to let somebody else see my Hiro-chan.”

Shuten Doji peeked one eye open at this. He closed it again quickly when he saw the cute, fretful way Yasha was biting his pale lip. “I had to agree just for the sake of Hiro-chan’s piece of mind, but I staged the whole thing. I brought the medicine man – the very one who’d sold me the Elixir and the hair removal potion to begin with, blindfolded him so he wouldn’t be able to find the realm on his own, and kept him in an air bubble just outside the realm until I could make sure Hiro-chan was…” Yasha swallowed. “I knew I was being paranoid even at the time, but… I didn’t want to risk anybody else seeing Hiro-chan’s face, since he was so enchantingly beautiful now. I wanted… I wanted it to be mine alone.

“Also, as I mentioned earlier, somewhere deep down, I already suspected that Hiro-chan only spoke to me affectionately because I was the only person to be affectionate _to_. I was afraid to let him look at anybody else. So I made Hiro-chan keep his face covered throughout the whole examination. Even with that precaution, my blood simmered during the whole charade. I’d told the medicine seller to make it look real, but his dedication to authenticity took no time at all to start trying my patience. In retrospect, I wished I’d just told Hiro-chan the truth and let him be upset with me. I half-thought I was going to kill him when he asked to look at my wife’s eyes…

“The moment the sham examination was over, I brought him away as fast as I could, and I made it clear that I would eviscerate him if he ever spoke of this to anyone. Then I went back home and reminded Hiro-chan that I was…” Yasha’s voice had been approaching a growl, but he suddenly reigned it back in and let out a frustrated sigh. “I tried to make it clear afterward that I wasn’t actually mad at him… that I just needed to reaffirm our connection, and that I was only jealous because I loved him… but Hiro-chan wouldn’t even look at me. I knew then and there that somehow, in a way I barely understood, I had failed him.

“I redoubled my efforts to be a good husband for Hiro-chan after that. I still had him take care of most of the laundry and the tidying up, but I did almost all of the cooking myself. I started searching extra hard for the very best food and clothes for him, and I made sure he never passed a month without at least one new book or scroll to entertain him in my absence. Whenever he was feeling too stiff or sore, I would massage him limb by limb, rub his skin with fine perfumes and beautifying oils, I gave him acupuncture whenever he needed it, and I told him often how beautiful and graceful he was. Yet, for all my efforts, his smiles only became less frequent. He would smile if I asked him to, but… it wasn’t the same. There was a gleam of melancholy disdain in his eyes that seemed to get brighter every time I asked.

“It started to make me angry after a while. I thought he was refusing to smile deliberately out of spite. Once, I was gone for an entire day in search of an especially thick and expensive poetry collection, and he didn’t even seem to notice I’d been gone. He read the entire scroll in one evening, and his lips didn’t twitch a muscle.

“I made new jewelry for him and placed them at the top of his jewelry box as a surprise, and he just put them on without remark. Like he didn’t even realize they were new. It seemed impossible that he could _still_ be unhappy. So one night during dinner, I confronted him about it. I interrogated him, trying to find out what I was doing wrong – what he still needed that I wasn’t providing for him, but he confessed that he was lacking nothing. So I asked him why he never smiled anymore. Hiroshi’s response was, ‘Why don’t you give me a reason?’”

Shuten Doji opened his eyes again. Yasha’s face contorted miserably, the corners of his lips twitching with barely restrained emotion. He was holding himself by the shoulders now and digging his nails into the fabric of his yukata. “Those words… It was worse than if he’d spat in my face. After all of my efforts, he…” The demon clutched at his hair, curling up in the fetal position. “I saw red, and I pounced on him. I grabbed his throat and…” He sniffed hard. “I knew… I knew that I didn’t want to kill him. I never meant to. I only wanted to… to scare him a little. I made sure not to crush his throat, but… I didn’t know how long I had to choke him before I would feel satisfied. I might have really killed him by mistake, unless…”

Yasha stopped talking for a minute and gave vent to a few sobs. Shuten Doji didn’t know how to react. He’d never seen a demon get this torn up about killing someone, let alone _almost_ killing someone. It was almost unnerving. There wasn’t much sake left in the jug, but he offered what there was to Yasha. The fiend downed it greedily, and a few of the tears on his cheeks rolled into his mouth to give a little salt to the draft. Granted courage, he pressed on bluntly.

“Then Hiro-chan smiled…” A shiver ran down Yasha’s spine. “His face was turning purple, his pulse was slowing down, and he gave up struggling altogether, but he _smiled._ The biggest, most sincere smile I’d ever seen on him. For a bare instant, I thought he must have been going insane, to smile when he seemed about to die. Then I realized, he was smiling precisely _because_ he was about to die. I jerked my hands away from his throat as if he’d burned me, and I suddenly felt very dizzy. Rage was replaced by horror. Hiroshi… my precious Hiro-chan _longed_ for death. As he coughed and sputtered air back into his lungs, I saw his face twist in disappointment… and then he looked accusingly at me. That marked the second time that I fled from him.” 

After that, Yasha swayed back and forth a little where he sat, trying to rub the tears from his eyes. “There was this… incident the next day… Before returning to the realm, I had this stupid, half-baked idea of getting Hiro-chan a puppy so that he’d be happier… I don’t wanna go into too much detail about it. Suffice it to say, Hiro-chan picked up on my real motives faster than I did and rebuffed the gift. After that, I tried to just let things go back to normal and hope that Hiro-chan would cheer up on his own.

“That was the second year since I’d made him by bride. After a year of patient coaxing and attention, Hiro-chan was as cold to me as ever. Worse, it seemed like he was getting… ‘stupider,’ though he was never stupid to begin with. He would often space out, forget things that I’d said to him only seconds earlier, and even lose track of what he was doing in the middle of a task. At first, it seemed silly and amusing. Later, I thought he might have being doing it just to annoy me, but… when I looked into his eyes, all I ever seemed to see was cold resignation and melancholy.

“Then one day, it came to me, what to do so he would relax and lower his guard. I needed to treat him to a drink.”

Shuten Doji clicked his tongue and offered a brittle chortle. “Took ya three whole years to think of that one, huh?”

The fiend returned a rueful smirk. “It’s not that I didn’t _think_ of it in three years. It’s just that I’m picky about my sake, and I wouldn’t dream of encouraging my bride to drink something I couldn’t enjoy with him. But by happy accident, I picked up a tip on a shipment of sake on its way to some stuck-up shogun’s estate. So, in an adventure worthy of its own story-” Yasha said this bit with a smirk of genuine pride – “I acquired it for myself and my beloved.”

Quick as the drop of a woodsman’s ax, an ungainly fell upon the two drinkers. Shuten Doji, who’d been feeling the first vestiges of drowsiness tug at his eyes, practically jolted awake at the sudden, stifling absence of words. It lasted so long that the demon king was eventually compelled to ask, “And then what happened?”

Yasha released a shuddering sigh. “At first… everything went according to plan. Maybe even better than I’d hoped; Hiro-chan had never had sake even approaching this in quality, and after the first few, hesitant sips, he was drinking with me eagerly. It was so… fun… It’s odd; when I reflect on my time with Hiro-chan, the word ‘fun’ is so seldom a part of my recollections.” He was lost in thought for just a moment, and then his frown deepened as he returned to his tale. “Then, somehow or other, Hiro-chan got to telling me this… amusing story about his dad and his little sister. He was laughing. He was smiling.

“I thought my heart would burst with joy. I hadn’t seen him so much as smirk in almost a month, and I don’t think he’d laughed a single time since his 20th birthday. Now he was grinning ear to ear. It gave me hope that I could be the one to make him happy after all. But gradually, the laughter started turning hysterical, and then it… it…” He frowned, groping for the right words. “It was like it… ‘melted,’ if that makes any sense. Like paint getting wet. Like a page of calligraphy soiled by the rain. Hiro-chan’s laughter melted into uncontrollable sobbing. It scared me, and for a while I couldn’t tell if he was really weeping, or if it was just some… extreme of humorous ecstasy. He was talking about his family, still, and how clearly he could remember them.

“When I could no longer deny that he was in the grip of some… nervous breakdown, I called out to him and gathered him in my arms. That’s when he began crying in earnest, and the sound of his lamentations made my chest go so tight that I couldn’t breathe. Humans are always fragile, but Hiro-chan had never felt so frail as at that moment.

“The past year, as he mentioned his village less and less, I’d hoped that he was moving on from them. I hoped that he would let go of them as all humans eventually do, and that I would find space in his heart. But I was so damned ignorant. Hiro-chan was too stubborn… or rather, too strong-willed to be faithless to the ones he loved like that. He must have been thinking about them every moment I wasn’t around, keeping their memory alive and burying his pain deeper. Now I’d brought it all to the surface. Me. The one who killed them. I massacred my bride’s happiness.

“That was the first time… the first time in my entire life that I ever shed tears. They were tears of remorse.” But Yasha shed no tears now. He only stared unblinking into the fire. “And yet… when I finally apologized to him, Hiro-chan shook his head and… and he…” Yasha swallowed convulsively. “He said it wasn’t my fault… Can you believe that?”

Shuten Doji grimaced. _Disturbing_. He wished there was still some sake left to wash the taste out of his mouth.

“It terrified me. I hoped it was just the sake talking, because the alternative was that I’d driven him mad. Then, Hiroshi started trying to blame himself. He said it was because he was away when it happened – that he ought to have died with them. I wouldn’t stand for that. I stopped him and told him firmly, with all the love I could, that it wasn’t his fault. He’d doing an errand for his father when his village died. None of them deserved it, but in the end it was an act of filial piety that spared Hiro-chan. He had no right to put the blame on himself. That seemed to calm him down for a while…

“Then he looked up and begged me to kiss him. It seemed such an inappropriate moment for it, but I couldn’t resist his pleading tones. I kissed as chastely as possible, yet with all the tenderness I felt for him. I only stopped when his fluttering heart began to steady. That’s when he smiled at me… He told me I was good to him, and he called me ‘pretty,’ and ‘kind,’ and ‘perfect.’ Words that at any other time would have made me glow with pride. Now, those undeserved praises were like searing daggers being buried into my guts. I was too ashamed to make any kind of reply.

“Then Hiro-chan kissed me again and…” Yasha was curled up, gripping his bangs again. He fed each bitter word out through clenched teeth. “We made love… Hiro-chan begged me to. I would never have dared to force myself on him then, but he was pleading and… I couldn’t bear making him cry anymore. I feared he would be heartbroken if I denied him sex the one time that he asked for it.

“It felt so… so wrong… so filthy. I was screwing him at the height of his grief – a grief that _I_ had caused. It was worse than when I’d raped him amid the ashes of his fallen village.” Yasha drew in a sharp, shuddering breath. “All throughout, I prayed… I don’t really know to whom… that I was helping him by doing this… that for once, I was doing less harm than good. Once we were exhausted, and I held his delicate, sleeping body in my arms, my final prayer as I fell into sleep was that he would know true happiness again someday.

“But in the middle of the night, he started screaming in his sleep… He was howling and thrashing with pain, like somebody was torturing him, and he kept calling out, “I’m sorry!” over and over again. For the second time, I was afraid that I’d driven him mad. He started trying to brain himself against the stone floor, and I had to restrain him while calling out his name through a deluge of tears. Then, when he finally stopped trying to crack his skull open, it was only so that he could vomit all over the futon. By the time I’d calmed Hiro-chan down and disposed of the ruined bedding, I was too tense… too guilt-ravaged to go back to sleep.”

Shuten Doji stared up at the wooded canopy overhead, seeing stars and fireflies without knowing which were which. The campfire would be nothing but embers in a few minutes. Without looking at his companion, he asked, “So, did you let the poor boy go after that?” No reply came. Then the king turned at the sound of a low, wheezing sob.

Yasha had turned away from the fire and was leaning one of his horns against the tree beside him, sobbing wretchedly. “I did… but it took me another three years to do it. Three long, miserable, hopeless years while I justified to myself, ‘He has no other family left. He has no means to support himself. He hardly looks human anymore – the other humans would never accept him.’ Three years while I tried to show him how much I loved him. Three years while I tried to blame him for clinging to the past. Three years… while I watched him go quieter and quieter, until it was like living with a corpse who’d forgotten to die… He wouldn’t even eat anymore unless I helped him, and he never… _ever_ … looked me in the eyes…

“Until the day I finally roused him from his stupor and asked him to speak to me from his heart…” Yasha bit down on one of his knuckles until it bled. “And he said that he hated me… and he told me that all he wanted was for me to die and let him die as well.”

At last, Shuten Doji gave up trying to restrain himself. He knew full well that Yasha had brought all of this on himself. What he’d done was truly terrible, and he hardly deserved any consolation for his misery. Even so, Shuten Doji had never been wronged by this demon, and it’s not like having pity on one bent double with remorse was any kind of endorsement of his actions. He was just following his instincts.

With deliberate care, Shuten Doji got to his knees, slid behind the blood-red demon, and pulled him into a gentle embrace. He only made sure not to look Yasha in the face while he held him. The fiend didn’t respond to the king’s touch, but after a moment he collected himself enough to resume.

“So… I lay a sleeping spell on him. I packed a trunk with… as many of his most valuable and useful gifts as it could fit. I spent two days and three attempts writing him a letter to explain myself. I enchanted a necklace I’d fashioned, but never had the chance to give to him, so that he could…” Yasha hiccupped. “… so that he could… call out to me if he were ever in need. Then I brought him back to the Land of the Living. I f-found…”

Yasha was gasping and sobbing so hard he couldn’t get another word out for nearly a minute. Shuten Doji rubbed his shoulder encouragingly, whispering, “It’s okay. Just let it all out.”

After another minute or so, Yasha gave up trying to regain his composure and just bulled on ahead. “I found a human ship sailing across my usual hunting grounds in the human sea. I… I en… I gave…” He swallowed hard. “I left… left Hiro-chan with them… and I warned those bastards that if they gave him any reason to complain, I’d tear them limb from fucking limb!” Yasha allowed the anger to carry his voice to a crescendo at the end, then he settled down just as quickly, and Shuten Doji went on rubbing his shoulders. “Then… I dropped back into the ocean and let it carry my body wherever it willed… for at least a day before making my way back to my realm in the Underworld. It was the only real home I’d ever had. I used to be so happy whenever I swam back to it. Now it was a contemptible place, full of nothing but painful memories. So I broke it and let the sea swallow everything I hadn’t given to Hiro-chan.”

Shuten Doji thought for a moment that this was where Yasha would conclude his tale, but then the younger demon curled himself up tighter and leaned against his chest. “It’s been four years since then… Four long, lonely years. So many times I’ve been tempted to try and see Hiro-chan again, but…” Yasha turned so that his face was nestled against Shuten Doji’s chest. “I swore a blood-oath when I lay the enchantment on Hiro-chan’s necklace that I wouldn’t go looking for him unless he called out to me. But more and more, I doubt that he ever will. He’s probably destroyed it or thrown it away, and I…” Shuten Doji felt the fiend’s nails drag against his chest, though his aura was far too unsteady just then to do any harm. “I… I’ll never see him again…”

This, Shuten Doji decided, was his cue to speak if ever he heard one. Calmly he whispered, “That’s as it should be.”

This didn’t abate Yasha’s forlorn sobs, but it didn’t seem to agitate them either. “What…” he gasped at length, “… what if… Hiro-chan still isn’t happy? What if I doomed him to a life without happiness, and then cursed him by extending that miserable, wretched life?”

Shuten Doji caught the rehearsed, yet earnest rhythm of the question. This question must have been haunting Yasha, unanswered, since the day he sent Hiroshi away. He ran his fingers through those crimson locks. It felt so strangely natural to treat Yasha like a woman. “It’s not your place to fear for his future now. It no longer involves you.” Shuten Doji said this firmly, but without cruelty. “But from what you’ve said of him… this ‘Hiro-chan’ sounds like a strong person. He was unhappy for 6 years, and yet he held onto the core of his identity through all that time. He made you change something fundamental about yourself just through the power of who he was. A person like that…” He let the thought hang for some time, then grinned to himself. “I don’t think the World of Men will be any more likely to break him than you were.”

Here, Yasha’s sobbing seemed to slow down thoughtfully. “You… might have a point there,” he conceded at length.

Shuten Doji smiled to himself and gave Yasha a slightly more energetic nudge. The fiend began to pull back a little, his face looking tentatively less wretched. “Besides,” the demon king added, “at least you had a chance to know the touch of the person you loved. That’s more than I can say.”

That, evidently, was the wrong tac.

Yasha’s face immediately crumpled in despair once again. He hung his head, crying and swearing under his breath. In vain, Shuten Doji tried to backtrack, “Hey wait! Wait a sec… I didn’t… I just meant…”

“That’s the worst part of it,” Yasha keened, no longer listening. “If I hadn’t been so determined to screw him and treat him like a girl… He’d still hate me, but at least _he_ could be happy. But no… I couldn’t control myself. Even as I saw his spirit wasting away in front of me, I _still_ just wanted to get off. No atonement could ever be suitable for the thousands of times I sodomized him.”

Shuten Doji, still trying to scrabble off this line of thinking, reached for the first, minor counterpoint he could think of. “Well… at least he got revenge _once_ , didn’t he?”

Yasha’s wails slowed, and soon he gave a puzzled. “… What?”

He pressed his point. “That night when you were poisoned, and you two sweat out the venom together. Weren’t you saying that he was the one who sodomized _you_ that night?”

“No!” Yasha snapped, frustrated. He hung his head again and spoke bitterly. “By then, he must have only thought of sex as getting fucked by me. It didn’t even _occur_ to him to take advantage of my vulnerable state. I almost wish he had. It would have made things just a _little_ bit fairer if at some point he… if he…” He trailed off thoughtfully.

Shuten Doji, misinterpreting the effeminate demon’s renewed silence, was trying to think of yet another way to improve his companion’s mood. So he was quite startled when Yasha sat bolt upright and took him by the wrists, meeting his eyes earnestly.

“Shuten Doji!” Yasha said urgently. “You still love Momiji, don’t you?”

The demon king felt his heart thumping powerfully. “Well… yeah…”

“And you wish that you could have spent just one night with her, right?” Yasha pressed.

“Uh… Sure, pretty much…” Shuten Doji hedged. Then, suddenly suspicious, he interjected, “But I’d never dream of taking her unwillingly so that she hated me.”

“No, of course not! I’d never suggest it!” Yasha said emphatically. “But earlier, you said that I’m every bit as pretty as a woman, didn’t you?”

Shuten Doji found Yasha a little hard to follow in his intoxicated state, but he nodded along. “Sure.”

“Am I anywhere in the league of your Momiji?”

The king’s fiery hair stood on end from the mere audacity of the question. “That… you… that’s hardly fair, you know?”

Yasha leaned a little closer, and the king saw something desperate in his stare. “I mean it! If I really _was_ a woman, would I be on Momiji’s level?”

Shuten Doji’s face felt hot, despite the dwindling of their camp fire. He took a deep breath to try and get his mind into a reasoning state again. “Well… I suppose that… seeing as you _aren’t_ a woman after all, I can say without disrespecting Momiji that… yeah… you’re almost as pretty as she is.” He saw the way Yasha’s eyes lit up at this. “… Pretty close second, in fact.”

Reenergized, Yasha nodded and straightened his back with determination. “Okay then. Will you fuck me?”

The demon king was stunned. It immediately made perfect sense that this was where Yasha had been leading, but at the same time he _still_ couldn’t believe that he’d heard him right. “Pardon?”

Yasha was undeterred. He still held Shuten Doji’s wrists in his hands. “Will you fuck me?”

It was no less astonishing the second time. “Uh… I’ve never really…”

“Please, Shuten Doji,” Yasha pleaded sincerely. The king had to admire the blood-haired demon’s strong grip. “Please say you will!”

“But… why…” Yes, that was what he meant to say. “Why do you… want me to fuck you? I thought you preferred to have the man’s role.”

“Exactly!” Shuten Doji felt his hot flush renewed by the fiend’s enthusiasm. In spite of his masculine voice and the ‘ _ore_ ’ pronouns, Yasha still looked, felt, and even _smelled_ like a woman, and the king could feel his manhood reacting expectantly. “This will be part of my penance to Hiro-chan,” Yasha continued. “Even though he may never see it or know that it happened, I _have_ to get fucked. I have to!”

Shuten Doji leaned back, his lips sealed tight shut as Yasha crawled toward him. He felt the fiend’s lithe body resting atop him, and his drunken loins throbbed eagerly. _This is dangerous!_

“Please, milord,” Yasha said, dropping his voice low and beseeching. Shuten Doji’s cock stirred again at the world ‘milord’ as it was shaped by those feminine lips. “Please… Punish me like I deserve. Give me a taste of what I did to Hiro-chan. Make me perform my penance until you’re satisfied, milord.”

The demon king remained silent, but now his lips were slightly parted. His mind felt clouded with steam. His inhibitions were softening like paper in a sauna.

“I promise you’ll enjoy it,” Yasha said, making his voice cooing and sultry. He guided Shuten Doji’s unresisting hands to his lithe hips and slipped one shoulder free of his yukata. “My hole is still virginal… and I’m sworn not to fight back no matter how rough you get with me. You can use me all you like, even if it takes till sunrise, and you’ll have no responsibility to me afterwards. If you want… I can put a blindfold on you, and you can pretend I’m Momiji. I promise I’ll keep my mouth shut. Please, milord?”

Although Shuten Doji’s cock was twitching in a kind of eager chanting, ‘ _Yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes, yes!_ ’ he tried to restrain himself until he could be sure there was no compelling reason not to. Certainly none came immediately to mind… One fairly minor qualm surfaced – not too troublesome, but he voiced it for the sake for form. “I’ve never done anything with a man before. You’ll have to show me how this works.” It only occurred to him after speaking that this was basically an agreement in itself. Not that he minded.

Yasha returned a wide, gracious smile. “Works for me.” With a gliding swipe of the hands, his deft fingers released the demon king from his hakama. His clean nails scraped so pleasantly against Shuten Doji’s thighs. The impressive member revealed to Yasha’s sight gave an expectant throb as it was exposed to the summer night’s air. Though not yet fully rigid, the king’s excitement was evident.

Shuten Doji leaned back, breathing softly and feeling Yasha’s warm breath on the back of his dick. “So w…” His question was cut short as he suddenly felt Yasha swallow his member nearly down to the base. “Fuck!” He gave a groan and clenched his fists convulsively, then looked down.

Yasha was looking back up at him with subservient eyes, and those soft, thin lips formed a tight ring a breath from the base of his cock. Shuten Doji could feel the demon’s warm tongue squirming against him, and he had to fight to keep his legs from thrashing about. After a few seconds of suction, Yasha drew back and released his cock with a wet ‘pop.’ It swayed and hovered just in front of those soft, pretty lips while the fiend fixed him with a glittering smile. “You like that?”

_Damn, that’s dangerous…_ Yasha had said it in such a husky whisper, it could easily have been a man or a woman either one. “Y-yeah,” Shuten Doji replied. “It’s been a while since any woman did this for me.”

“Do you think you’ll need the blindfold?” Yasha asked, looking the older demon in the eye. Then he licked a drop of pre from his tip and gave an impish smirk. Shuten Doji shivered as the fiend started licking the back of his dick, making it twitch with pleasure. It still wasn’t standing upright, but rather it bobbed and swayed as his libido fought to overcome the sake in his system.

“I think I’ll be good,” the demon king said with a contented smile. “You could make me cum just from this…” Distractedly, he ran his fingers through Yasha’s crimson tresses,

Yasha gave him a devilish smirk and slid his lips and tongue up and down the head of his dick, making Shuten Doji hiss through his teeth. “This? This is just foreplay. I need to get you nice and… slick.” With that, he drew his tongue over the king’s sack and all the way up to the tip.

“Fuck!” Shuten Doji slammed his fists against the ground and bucked his hips involuntarily. When he opened his eyes again, he saw Yasha sitting upright and opening the folds of his yukata. There was something so quintessentially erotic about the sight. The green fabric slid open like the bud of a flower, revealing Yasha’s pale shoulders and lean chest in the low firelight. The younger demon’s muscles weren’t as bulky as Shuten Doji’s, but they were well-defined, accenting the narrow curve of his waist before it led down to a pair of wide hips that seemed to invite the hands to touch.

Then the yukata parted enough to reveal a startlingly enormous member making a mockery of the fundoshi that vainly strove to contain its girth. “What the flaming gods is!...” Shuten Doji suddenly wished he’d let Yasha blindfold him after all. He’d always been proud of his cock, but next to that monstrous…

Yasha swiftly leaned in and rested a finger on the king’s lips. “Shh. Don’t look at that. Pay it no mind. You don’t have to worry about that tonight.” Then he laid a kiss on the fiery demon’s neck, soothing his nerves a little. Then he turned around, got down onto all fours and dropped his fundoshi to the ground. “ _This_ is yours tonight, milord. Let me warm your cock and give you pleasure, my king.” A wiggle of the hips showed off his hole invitingly.

_Now that’s better._ This was a pose Shuten Doji’s instincts understood. Even the sight of the demon’s round, smooth balls hanging underneath those full cheeks didn’t turn him off – not in this submissive pose. Not when that hole looked so tight and pale, framed by such luscious mounds, and with that pretty face smiling at him so willingly. He got up onto his knees and lined himself up behind Yasha. His dick was back at attention in no time.

Shuten Doji suddenly thought of the last (and only) time a woman had offered to let him enter her ass. He had gone in all at once a little too abruptly and wound up hurting her so that they had to stop. He certainly didn’t want a repeat of that incident. So he took firm hold of Yasha’s hips and started to push against his entrance with gentle pressure. It was reluctant to give. Beneath his fingers, he thought he could feel a nervous thrum. Yasha let out a deep breath, and his hole relaxed slightly. Shuten Doji saw the opportunity and pushed just the head of his cock inside.

“Ack!” Yasha’s whole body went rigid, and Shuten Doji froze anxiously. The demon’s sphincter gripped his tip like a vice.

“You okay?” he asked cautiously.

Yasha nodded, lips pursed. “I’m fine… Keep going.”

The older demon started to push his hips forward again. His penitent companion was breathing heavily and trying to relax, but his muscles just didn’t want to obey. Shuten Doji was having to concentrate more than he’d have wished to take advantage of Yasha’s moments of relaxation.

Then, the king’s eagerness got the better of him. Just as Yasha’s ass gave a particularly potent squeeze, Shuten Doji thrust about half a hand’s breadth deeper all at once. The fiend let out a cry of pain, and he arched his shoulders up while his hole clamped reflexively on the king’s member. “Damn it!” he screamed. Then he lowered his brow into his forearm and raked his nails through the grass. “G-god… fucking _damn it!_ ”

“Sorry! Fuck, fuck, sorry…” Instantly scorched with embarrassment, Shuten Doji hastily pulled out of the other demon’s ass. Yasha howled with pain, his body shuddering and tensing up still further. His hole couldn’t completely shut once the cock was withdrawn. Guilt scorched the older demon’s face. “Are you-..”

Shuten Doji didn’t get to finish. In an instant, Yasha spun about and pinned his shoulders to the ground. “Why did you stop?” he demanded.

The king’s jaw worked noiselessly, baffled. “You… I didn’t want to hurt you…”

The words were barely out of his mouth before Yasha shouted, “You _can’t_ stop! You have to keep going!” Shuten Doji was struck dumb by the almost fearful pleading in the demon’s voice. “It doesn’t matter if it hurts… In fact, it _should_ hurt! You have to take revenge for Hiro-chan! Be as ruthless to me as I was to him! _Please_ , my king!” Shuten Doji’s flagging dick gave another lurch as Yasha’s nails scratched imploringly at his chest and shoulders.

“I… Yasha, I…”

“Please…” Yasha begged, grinding his rump back against the king’s dick. He reached back and started to guide it towards his hole once again. “I have to do this… for Hiro-chan… I can’t stop until my belly is stuffed with milord’s seed. So please… please breed me, my king.”

He paused with the tip of Shuten Doji’s member resting against the ring of his sphincter and gave him one last, imploring look. The demon king swallowed hard, then nodded his permission.

For the next two minutes or so, Yasha struggled to work the man’s dick into his hole. It was distressingly fidgety work, because he had to fight his own reflexes the whole while, and the longer he spent on the project, the less rigid the demon’s cock became. Sweat stood out on his brow, but he reckoned he had at least the head and the first part of the shaft past his entrance. If he could just get a little more inside, he could use his internal muscles to massage Shuten Doji back to full mast.

At last, the king gave an awkward grunt. “Yasha…”

The fiend gave a tiny whine. “Just a little more… I’ve almost…”

“Yasha, this isn’t going to work…”

Yasha’s hand stopped. He looked hurt as he turned his gaze to Shuten Doji. “Milord, please… is it… Am I just…”

Apology was writ bold across Shuten Doji’s face. “It’s not that, Yasha… It’s just impossible…” Seeing Yasha’s crestfallen expression deepen, he hoisted himself up onto his elbows and lifted his head up closer to his companion’s face. “I just can’t keep it up. I’m too drunk!” He purposefully declared this last statement a little louder than necessary to make sure it got through.

It did the trick. Yasha froze, and the expression dropped from his face. For the span of several long breaths, they just stared at one another, Shuten Doji earnest and Yasha blank.

All at once, they both burst out laughing. Yasha flopped forward and lay upon Shuten Doji’s chest, and together they made the surrounding valley ring with their laughter. Neither was completely sure what was so funny about the situation, but for several minutes they were both laughing too hard to try and reason it out. When their mirth finally subsided, there were only glowing embers in the firepit. Absently, Shuten Doji’s hand found the hem of Yasha’s yukata, and he drew it over them like a blanket.

“Bad luck, eh?” he said mildly.

Yasha yawned distracted. “It’s alright. There’s…” Sleep stole over him mid-sentence, as it so often will when it has sake to muffle its approach.

* * * * *

The hangover Shuten Doji had on waking was, he knew immediately, one for the records. Possibly the worst hangover he’d had since Momiji rejected him. For all that, though, it wasn’t _quite_ bad enough. If the pain were just a little bit worse, it would have rendered him unconscious, and then he wouldn’t have to notice it. His throat felt like tree bark, and there was no inch of his skin that didn’t feel at once brittle from desiccation and nauseatingly clammy at the same time. He felt cold with morning chill, and yet Yasha’s body was feverishly hot on his skin.

His head felt too thick and soupy to think right, but he vaguely supposed it might still be possible to fall back asleep if he just didn’t move and focused on submitting to the pain and fatigue. He just… had to…

“ _Shuten Doji!_ ” The boisterous shout struck his head like a gong. His skull seemed to swell to twice its usual size as it throbbed with pain, and he would have screamed if his throat hadn’t been so parched.

Without mercy, the voice continued to call out. “Shuten Doji! Come out, my noble friend! Noon arrives, and so it’s time for us to do battle once more!”

The realization that it was Ibaraki Doji hounding him made Shuten Doji feel three different kinds of sick. Still, he couldn’t summon the energy to get up and make a break for it. The one-armed demon’s voice was drawing closer.

“Aha! I smell the smoke of your campfire, my friend!” Ibaraki Doji enthused. “I’ll bet you spent the whole night out here to gather your energies for our battle! I would expect nothing less… from…” As the white-haired devil entered the clearing and spotted Shuten Doji and Yasha lying together beneath the green yukata, his voice trailed off, stunned.

Just before Shuten Doji could begin to savor the silence, though, Ibaraki Doji bellowed, “Get off of him, tramp! Harlot! Unworthy bitch! How dare you take advantage of my friend’s drunken heartache to seduce him! Get lost!” Any minute now, Shuten Doji thought, his head was going to split open like an overripe persimmon.

Atop the demon king, Yasha was finally starting to stir with a hangover of his own. He pushed himself up, eyes red and searing with evil displeasure as he swiveled his head to stare back at his one-armed slanderer. “Just who are you calling a tramp, asshole?”

The depth of the voice took Ibaraki Doji by surprise. Then, as Yasha lifted himself up higher and the yukata slipped off his back, Ibaraki Doji caught sight of Yasha’s gargantuan member. Even when flaccid, it was a hard thing to miss.

Ibaraki Doji’s mouth moved noiselessly for a while in silent confusion. Then he began to call out with his volume redoubled, voice edged with panic on the verge of hysteria. “My friend! What’s going on here? What is this?!” Shuten Doji’s groan of agony was too quiet to be heard over Ibaraki Doji’s shouting. He could hardly move. “Please explain!” The one-armed warrior’s voice continued to rise in desperation. “You must explain this to me, Shuten Doji. I don’t understand… I never thought that you… Why didn’t… If this was something you wanted, then why didn’t… you ever…”

“No…” It burned Shuten Doji’s throat to make himself heard, but he had to speak. He _wasn’t_ too hungover to pick up on his friend’s misunderstanding. “That’s not… it… Ibaraki Doji… I…” The words scraped against his throat like a mouthful of barnacles and brought tears to his eyes.

As he pushed himself up onto his elbows, the tears coursed down his cheeks. With one last burst of energy, he met his friend’s gaze and tried to deliver the most important fact to cut through the misunderstanding. “I couldn’t… do anything…” he croaked, then he fell back and screwed his eyes shut in anguish. Beside him, Yasha had fallen back onto his haunches and was rubbing his face in pain.

Ibaraki Doji’s face went deathly pale, and he stared agape at the two demons before him. For a moment, all was silent but for Shuten Doji’s miserable groaning. Then all at once, the air was filled with an unnatural stillness. Yasha looked up, then flinched as the ground began to rumble. Ibaraki Doji’s body was flooded with power. The dark ball of energy in his single, clawed hand looked ready to burst. He fixed Yasha was a death-glare so terrible and hateful that even the crimson fiend was scared by it.

“Bastard!” Ibaraki Doji howled, and his voice felt like a hammer against Shuten Doji’s entire body. “You wicked bastard! You think you can violate my noble friend’s body and get away with it?”

Terror began to overcome Yasha’s hangover. He subtly began to poise himself for flight, knowing that he would be dead long before he finished explaining himself if he stayed. The instant Ibaraki Doji lunged at him, Yasha sprang towards his spear where it leaned against a toppled log, grabbed it, and made a dash for the trees just as the ground burst into gravel behind his feet. Shuten Doji, meanwhile, screeched with agony as the shockwave shivered through his body. He pressed his palms against his face.

Gritting his teeth with fury, Ibaraki Doji took a moment to kneel beside the demon king. “Don’t worry, my friend,” the white-haired demon declared. He drew the abandoned yukata over Shuten Doji’s naked body once again. “That disgusting rapist isn’t going to get away with this. You just stay here and rest. I’ll rip his womanish head off and restore your honor!” Then he bounded off in pursuit, calling maledictions out ahead of him.

In the sudden quiet, Shuten Doji lay spread-eagle with his parched mouth hanging open. It felt like his whole body was made of splinters. Presently, in a voice no more than a hoarse whisper, he called out, “Water… Please… somebody… water…”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm back, everybody! My last chance to get things tidied up and give a satisfactory ending!
> 
> I guess 3 weeks from the start of drafting to the posting of the first chapter is pretty standard. Still, I somehow imagined that I'd get it finished quicker... Oh well. 
> 
> Luckily, the next chapter is already drafted, so I should have it finished by early February. 
> 
> Thank you all for sticking with me! I hope this last addition is worth the wait.
> 
> Edit: If I could stop providing a synopsis of the plot at every turn, that'd be greeeeeeeat


	2. Chapter 2

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Three years after leaving Kyoto, and four years since Yasha set him free, Hiroshi is living a quiet existence in a Buddhist monastery. 
> 
> Out of the blue, a smiling face emerges. Inomata no Keita has come to call.

十日十月

The last chime of the hourly bells slowly faded into silence. A group of monks and acolytes moved wordlessly into line and began to file down the trail from the garden, each holding a broom or basket of dead weeds. Amid the stillness of the mountainside, every man could easily hear the voice of the abbe who stood by the gate. He was in conversation with a stranger in traveling clothes, a bamboo hat upon his head. Each acolyte spared a brief glance at the pair and continued on their way with steps untroubled.

All of a sudden, the stranger’s voice carried up the mountain as he called out, “Hiro-nii!”

The second monk in line, looked up at this call. With an almost instinctive motion, he took one full step off the path so as not to obstruct his brothers before coming to a stop. The abbe turned calmly and met the remarkable gaze of that brother. At a beckoning gesture, he came down the slope to meet the abbe and his visitor with broom in hand.

He scanned the man in one quick flicker, seeing that his kimono was travelworn, that the base of his hiking stick was smoothed to a round ball. Strands and snarls of matted hair hung from beneath the brim of his hat, escaping from what had once been a tidy knot, and his chin and jaw were dense with whiskers. His whole posture warred between excitement and anxiety.

“Hello Keita,” the monk said formally, though without honorific. His face remained studiously blank.

The traveler nodded, his broad chest inflating with nervous tension. His lips made the first, tentative whisper of a smile. “Oniisan.”

The monk’s eyes, which were an unnatural, varicolored hue like the coat of a peacock, softened into a bare hint of a helpless smile. Then he gave his attention to the abbe. “I still have some chores left,” he said respectfully, making a discreet gesture with the broom in his hand.

The wrinkled old abbe gave an unconcerned shrug and gently took the broom from his acolyte. “I could use a little exercise,” he said nonchalantly, then added, “Don’t be late for dinner.”

As simply as that, the abbe walked on up the path to the monastery, leaving his acolyte to tend to their visitor. The monk looked to him once more, examining the feelings that moved through his chest like rainwater. He gestured toward a wooden bench that sat just inside the gate.

He and Keita sat down close to one another, and the traveler took off his hat and leaned it against the leg of the bench. For some time, the silence of the mountainside prevailed. When far in the distance a crow called, it came to them like a confidential whisper. The silence stretched out between them, going from expectant, to tense, to comfortable. Without looking at him, the monk knew himself to be the focus of his visitor’s whole attention.

At last, Hiroshi looked up to meet the man’s honest, pale brown eyes. “I’m surprised,” he said casually.

Keita blinked. “That I found you, or that I came looking for you at all?”

The monk’s mouth quirked a little. “Either. But what I meant was that I’d expected you to speak first.” Keita broke his gaze, and a red flush spread up his neck. “That _would_ be the proper way of things, would it not?” Hiroshi pressed with a touch of slyness.

“I know,” Keita said quickly, smiling in helpless embarrassment. “I know, it’s just…”

“You don’t know what to say?” Hiroshi offered helpfully.

“No, I’ve thought of two things to say,” Kei answered. “But they contradict each other, so I can’t say them both. I can’t decide which one is more true, either.”

If Keita hadn’t been staring at his own knees, he would have seen Hiroshi’s eyes light up. “Luckily, I’m pretty good at reasoning through contradictions. Say them both.”

“Okay…” Though still grinning bashfully, Keita looked up to meet his friend’s glittering eyes. “You haven’t changed a bit… and also, you seem different now.”

Hiroshi’s grin was as close to a delighted giggle as one can come without making any noise. At length he said, “I see your dilemma. To say one of those things but not the other would almost be a lie. I certainly _feel_ very different. But I suppose I can’t have changed much if you recognized me at a distance.”

Keita shrugged his broad shoulders. “Hiro-nii is Hiro-nii.”

ヒロ兄がヒロ兄。

Now it was the monk’s turn to blush, though only slightly. “Of course… I might have known..”

“Still,” Keita continued, rubbing the back of his head. “I’ll admit that… even though I knew to expect it… the hair still surprised me a little.”

Now Hiroshi blushed in earnest and rubbed self-consciously at his smooth scalp. “O-oh… right… You know, I hardly ever think about that these days. Does it… shock you?”

Keita shook his head. “It suits you.” A wolfish grin spread across his lips. “Though with your youthful features, you almost look like a jizo statue.” He clapped his hands together in a gesture of prayer and bowed slightly where he sat.

Hiroshi laughed compulsively, then tried to cover it under an aghast expression, smacking Keita’s hands away. “Stop that!” he said. “This is a monastery, Kei!”

“Right, right! Sorry.” He ducked his head, but he was still grinning ear to ear. After a second, Hiroshi couldn’t pretend to be mad at him.

The monk cast an eye once more over his visitor’s garb and reminded himself of the unwritten script that lay between them. The questions he had to ask, though he already knew or suspected the answers to around half of them. Eventually, he decided on a safe point to begin.

“How long have you been on the road?”

Keita shrugged. “Not two months yet. Most of that’s my own fault. This is the third monastery I’ve checked, and I lost my way for a little while after the second one.”

Hiroshi felt a sharp pang. “I’m so sorry… You must be exhausted.”

Kei waved the remark aside casually. “I knew at the start not to make hard going of it. I’ve been going at my ease and taking in the scenery. The land is so beautiful between here and Heian-Kyo. The time would have been well spent, even if I never found you.”

Somewhat reassured by this, Hiro moved on to one of the bigger questions. “How were… things in Kyoto when you left?”

Keita knew what issue Hiroshi was circumnavigating and decided to answer the underlying question. “Haru-san is doing very well. She was… saddened by your leaving, but she’s alright now.”

Hiroshi took a deep breath, making an effort not to shut out the sudden feeling of shame, but not letting it over-power him either. As Keita watched, the blush began to creep up his neck, stopped, and then receded like the tide as his breathing leveled out. “I see,” he said simply, composure regained. “That’s good. I’m glad.”

Keita continued to watch his face closely. “Itsuki-neechan is living with her now. She moved in just a few weeks after you left.”

Hiroshi didn’t even try pretending he wasn’t taken aback. “She did? What about… Suirou?”

Keita made a motion as though lazily tossing something over his shoulder. “She left him. Word around town is that she found him ‘drinking and gambling with his disreputable friends’ one too many times, and she decided that her children deserved better. So they all moved in with Haruko.”

Hiroshi’s eyes were wide in disbelief. This was an outcome he’d never imagined. “But… did he not even try to fight it?”

A small hint of a smirk touched Keita’s lips. “Yes… but he waited a good three months to speak out about it. By that time, the gossip had gone stale and the rest of the town had settled down to the notion. No one had any sympathy for a man who’d wait so long to start caring about his kids’ welfare. Then, he shows up with a magistrate to Haru-san’s house while they were having tea with Lady Shiragawa. He demands to have a negotiation with the ladies of the house, or else he’ll bring them to trial, but then Haru-san’s mother pulls him aside and has a private conversation with him.” Kei couldn’t hide the vicious grin on his lips. “Nobody knows what she said to him, but after two minutes, he comes back pale as a ghost and lets the whole matter drop. Best of all, he _still_ had to pay the magistrate’s fee for being summoned as a witness.”

A hint of that same smirk was caught on Hiroshi’s lips by the end. “That’s Auntie Karin. She would be Kyoto’s most notorious gossip, but she never says a word unless it serves her.”

“I know.” Keita shuddered theatrically. “She scares the hell out of me.”

“What do Itsuki-san’s daughters think of the change?”

Kei’s smile quirked oddly. “They’re happy about it. Suirou was never home enough for them to be terribly attached, and they live much better in Haru-san’s house now. Although… Neechan had to make a point of telling them not to ask after ‘Hiro-oneesan’ anymore.”

This time, the wave of guilt caught Hiroshi quite off guard. He swiftly averted his eyes and experienced a sensation like cold brine pouring into his belly. Shame held his jaws shut.

Keita noticed the effect and slid closer to his friend, wrapping an arm companionably around the monk’s shoulders. “Sorry… That was the wrong thing to say, wasn’t it?”

Hiroshi shook his head. “I made my decision knowing people would be hurt. It wouldn’t be right to shy away from it.” He waited a few seconds for Keita to ask the obvious next question. When, the silence stretched for more than a full minute, he sighed and asked one of his own. “Keita… Why did you decide to come looking for me?”

Kei gave him a sideways glance. “Aren’t you happy to see me?”

Hiroshi was acutely aware of how warm and comforting the arm wrapped around him felt. “I am. More than I like to say. All the more because it was so unexpected. But… why? And how did you know where to find me?” He looked up to see Keita staring off into the distance.

The man breathed solemnly, then spoke in low, careful tones. “Haruko-san told me.”

For a moment, Hiroshi’s unnatural eyes dilated wide. “Haru-chan… told you… where to find me?” he asked, seeking clarification.

“She told me everything,” Keita answered. “Everything you told her, and everything she guessed.”

The silence between them suddenly became as dense and heavy as fog. Keita didn’t resist as the monk gently shrugged out from under his arm and sat up straight, staring at him. “And… she sent you to find me?”

Kei shook his head, then met Hiroshi’s eyes. “I already wanted to look for you. Haru-san just… told me where to look.” Hiroshi didn’t respond. He just sat still and waited for Keita to explain himself. The visitor squirmed under his gaze, but he didn’t shy away. “I missed you, Hiro-nii. I wanted to be sure you were well,” he said at last, perfectly earnest.

“I could have guessed,” Hiroshi stated flatly.

Keita bit his lip. “But you want to know why she would tell me – me in particular, that is – something so private.” Hiroshi drew in a breath and poised his mind in a state of passive reception ideal for listening. He gave a short nod once he was ready. “Because… Haruko knows that I like you.”

‘I like you.’ The monk didn’t doubt Keita’s words or puzzle over their meaning. He simply watched as the fact slid without a crease into the picture of his friend Keita that he held in his mind. “I see.”

Keita managed not to flinch, but it was clear that the stark simplicity of the response unnerved him. It was an odd sight, that tall, rugged man cowering in front of what most would mistake for a boy half his age. The monk looked away first. “And… you wanted to find me to… tell me this?”

Far from relaxing him, Hiroshi’s level tone felt like ice against his back. Kei caught the subtext of the question, and it was with an effort that he fought back the sting to his conscience. “I wasn’t lying before. I wanted to make sure that you were alright. True that it’s given me the chance to tell you this, but…” He trailed off.

“Now that you have, do you plan to take me back to Kyoto?”

“I can’t.”

The monk looked up at that simple answer. “You can’t?”

The rugged man shook his head. “You didn’t say that you liked me too.”

Hiroshi’s lips parted, then closed. A moment later he asked, “If she knew that you had feelings for me, then why did Haru-chan tell you my story? Doesn’t that make you… her rival?”

“No!” His response was immediate and urgent. “No, Hiro-nii, never! I’ve never looked at Haruko-san as…” He reflected for a moment. “Well… maybe just a little bit. But from the start, I never resented her. Everyone thought she was a good match for you… myself included.” He gave a wan smile. “I had been wanting to tell you my feelings for some time… but I knew I didn’t have much to offer. When your engagement was announced, it was obvious you would be happier with her than you would with me. So I held my peace.”

Hiroshi reflected on this. “But… she found out.”

Keita nodded and rubbed the back of his neck in slight embarrassment. “She… noticed the way I looked at you whenever I was visiting. Later, Itsuki-neechan told her the truth.”

Now he was _really_ surprised. “Itsuki knew?”

Keita felt his chest untense as surprise stole the hard scrutiny from Hiro’s voice. “I told her. Neesan and I go way back, you know… I told her about you back when I was fourteen.”

Hiroshi furrowed his brow. “But… that would have been… my trip to Kyoto.”

Kei nodded, and his rugged face gave an oddly soft smile. “Do you remember how we met?”

Hiro gave a grim smirk. “You were in a fight, as I recall. I still remember how even with a split lip and your eye blackened, you kept your fists raised.”

Keita shrugged, grinning. “I was about to lose. I’d been in a few fistfights before, but… this one was with a friend, so I couldn’t muster up my full strength. I couldn’t just quit, though, ‘cos it was a fight between men.” He ignored Hiro’s ironical smirk. “When you intervened, though…” He shrugged. “It’s different when somebody else steps in. If an oniisan tells you to stop fighting, you’re allowed to give up and still save face.”

A loud, solid laugh burst from Hiroshi before he could stop it. “Is that how it works?” His tone was light and teasing.

Keita shrugged again. “It worked out, anyhow. And then, like a guardian spirit, you pulled me aside and patched me up, and then…” There was a break in his story. He picked back up after a pause, but his tone had become introspective. “You seemed so… remarkable to me even then. I guess it’s because you were the youngest educated person I’d met, and yet you were humble and sweet at the same time. You shared food with me when I showed you around the market, and I remember how you always seemed at ease with whoever you were talking to – whether it was fancy people like Shiragawa-san or common folk like me and my friends.”

Keita suddenly became a little bashful. “I really thought you were cool. After you went back home, I started keeping track of all the interesting things that happened to me so I could tell you the next time you were in Kyoto. When I was _still_ talking about you after a month… Itsuki-neesan was the one who suggested that I must have fallen in love. A few people said that actually, but she was the only one who wasn’t just saying it to tease me.” He gave another thoughtful pause. “Have you ever noticed a particular feeling you get when you’re lying to somebody? A kind of… hot, guilty, hunted feeling? Whenever people teased me about it, I laughed it off like a joke and felt a little… prickle of that feeling. When I denied it to neesan, though, the feeling was… too distinct to ignore.” He fidgeted anxiously upon the bench. “… I guess that’s why I’ve never tried to court anyone else, really. Even when I heard that your village was destroyed and you were presumed missing… I had a hard time believe that you were really gone.”

The monk stared at the ground. “I almost feel guilty… thinking that you’ve put off starting a family because of me.”

“It’s no more your fault than mine,” Keita said. Then at Hiroshi’s quizzical look, he clarified, “My heart wouldn’t lend itself to anyone else. Women _have_ made passes at me, but… I was just never interested.”

Hiroshi offered a wan smile of his own. “I see why Haruko decided to trust you… You’re a good man. Any woman would be lucky to have a husband like you.” Long silence. Out of the corner of his eye, Sato noticed his companion’s ironical grimace. He pushed out a breath that had gotten heavier since he’d inhaled it. “Kei… I know you feel as though you love me. But we’ve-”

“No!” Keita interrupted urgently. He frowned and looked directly into Hiroshi’s varicolored eyes. “No, Hiro-nii. I never said, ‘I love you.’ I said only, ‘I like you.’ I’m not a child anymore. I know that to ‘fall in love’ is not really… not proper love. I _know_ it takes more than the time in our brief acquaintance to really love someone.” Keita suddenly realized that, although the monk remained sitting upright, he himself was leaning to close. He pulled himself back a little. “But I _do_ like you, Sato no Hiroshi… I feel happy when I think about you. I couldn’t help worrying about you for these past three years, wondering where you’d gone and how you were faring.”

Keita suddenly came up short. His eyes started to turn red and watery, but he put on a manly smile and held the tears at bay. “Now I’m just so relieved. You look better. since last I saw you. You’re… lighter. You breathe so freely now. You really do seem… happier.”

Hiroshi closed his eyes with a faint smile. It was true. He had slept soundly for more than two years now.

“Haruko told me… that you’re likely to live to reach 300 years old. Is that true?”

_She really did tell him everything._ The monk’s shoulders stiffened for a moment, then relaxed. “Yes. Probably closer to 250 years, but… yes. It’s true.”

Kei nodded, and his eyes came to rest on the back of the older man’s hand. He tried to picture the future of that hand – growing older by decades without aging a day. “It’s hard to imagine what that must be like… but it makes sense that you would come somewhere like this. Still, I can’t say it makes me want you any less.” His voice dropped so low on the words ‘want you’ that Hiroshi almost didn’t catch them.

“Kei…”

“Hiro-nii.” He met the monk’s eyes again. “I still wish that I knew you better. I wish that I could spend more time with you. I wish I was there to make you smile, to dry your tears, to warm you when you’re cold. I would… probably come to love you faster than was wise if you ever told me you felt the same.

“But I recognize these thoughts for the selfishness that they are.” Tears started to leak through his bravado, but he held his head high and spoke levelly. “If this is where you’re happiest, then I have no right to ask you to leave. But… if you like me too… if you think you could be happy with me, then…” Keita didn’t trust himself to articulate his entire meaning with any sort of grace. So he stopped talking and let the implication sit between them.

Hiroshi thought silently for a long, long time before he spoke. “You are a good man, Keita,” he began softly. “You have been honest with me, and it’s only fair that I do the same… I admit, I like you too, Kei. Probably more than is wise. Part of me wishes to go with you.” He shook his head. “But what I said to Haruko in my letter is true. When people perceive my youth and longevity they will come to fear and loathe me, and they’ll take it out on whoever’s closest to me. And Oda no Tetsuo… Haru-chan told you about him, didn’t she? He probably still thinks of me as ‘the one that got away,’ and he won’t think twice about hurting _you_ to get to me, given the chance. I can’t go back to Kyoto.”

Gently, but with no trace of reservation, Keita declared, “Then I won’t either.”

Hiroshi looked at him sharply. “Keita, no.”

“I can move to a smaller town or village with you. I can even build us our own house out in the country.”

“Kei, you can’t!” Hiroshi said, insistent but with more than a hint of regret. “Kyoto is your home. All of your family is there.”

“So is yours,” Keita pointed out reasonably.

“Your family depends on you.” The monk edged his voice with the barest hint of reproach.

Keita shook his head. “All of my siblings are old enough to work and help in the kitchen. They’ll continue to prosper without me.”

“They’ll miss you…”

“They miss _you_ already, Hiro-nii,” he answered with a trace of a smirk. “We’ll just have to both write them letters from time to time.”

Hiroshi faltered. “Kei… I can’t ask you to uproot yourself for me.”

“You haven’t asked. I’m offering. I know I would still be happy this way. It’s up to you what you decide now.” 

The monk stared for a long minute into those warm brown eyes. Then he looked down “You tempt me, Kei… You tempt me sorely. And I’m just wise enough to know that I wouldn’t be so badly tempted if… I didn’t like you as well. Maybe somewhere in my heart as well, there rests a little seed that could someday grow into love.” He looked at his hands. At the pink, rough scar that ran across his palm and the fingers of his left hand. “But… out of respect for that potential love, I feel I should urge you to seek someone… less battered and… sullied than me.” He shut his eyes and clenched his hand into a fist. “I don’t believe fate ordained me to have such great happiness. Let alone to give it to others.”

Both men were still for some time. In the distance, the sound of a wooden fish being struck in rhythm began to ring out. A half-dozen voices began reciting a sutra, following the tempo. From the bench where Kei and Hiroshi sat, the sound was faint.

“I would gladly take the risk either way,” Keita said at last. “Hiro-nii is Hiro-nii. Your ‘virginity’ never figured in the way I felt about you. And for what it’s worth… I don’t believe it’s possible to know what fate ordains. Despite your longevity, we could go our separate ways tomorrow, and then a tree could fall on you and end your life before me. However, I can say with certainty that you’re wrong if you think you were not ordained to bring anyone happiness. You made _me_ happy on the very first day we met.”

Hiroshi looked up at this. Kei’s smile was like warm broth trickling into the belly. His own expression became neutral – but not the rigid neutrality of concealment or self-discipline. His face simply relaxed as if he were deep in sleep, though his eyes remained open.

“Every time that I’m in your company feels happy,” Keita continued. “And as for me… I _am_ happy. My life has been a good one. I’m strong, tall, healthy, and… well, I like to _think_ that I’m handsome.” The corner of Hiroshi’s lips quirked in spite of himself. “I’d settle for ‘not ugly’ at the very least.” That wrung a snort of laughter from the monk, and Keita grinned proudly. “I _do_ have happiness to spare. I feel like I could share mine with you and not have to lose a morsel. So don’t worry about me, Hiro-nii. _Be_ selfish. Whether you want to stay here or come with me, I’m going to be okay. You decide what’s best for Sato no Hiroshi.”

Hiroshi made no response right away, and Keita could see that the indecision was troubling him. After an appropriate pause, Keita rested a hand on the monk’s shoulder. “Listen… all day tomorrow, I’m going to be in town, resting and getting provisions for the next leg of my journey. I’ll be setting out the morning after. I’ll wait until then for your answer. Take your time to decide.”

The monk still gave no reply. Abruptly, Keita threw his arms around Hiro’s shoulders and pressed him close. The hug was long, and tight, and breathtaking. It was the first embrace Keita had given him in three years. It might be the last embrace he ever gave. It had to count.

Hiroshi fought down every impulse that cried out for him to hug Kei back. If he started, he wasn’t sure he’d be able to let go. In the end, though, he couldn’t help but lean his cheek against Keita’s neck and feel the younger man’s whiskers scratching his ear. He sighed, then, as one lowering themself into a warm bath.

Then, too soon for either of their liking, Keita released him. He stood up, donned his traveling hat, slung his pack over one shoulder, and started to make his way down the path. A few seconds later, the monk got up and moved to the gate to watch him go. Keita didn’t look back. Didn’t raise his hand in departure. Didn’t say goodbye. Hiroshi said nothing either – not even to the encroaching stillness. He just stared after the retreating back, his thoughts all drowned out by the tightness in his belly.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Honestly, I'd like another week to go over this one with a fine comb and a trowel, but... my recent bread-baking endeavors have taught me that there IS such a thing as overworking a piece, and it's time I got started on the final chapter. 
> 
> I hope this has been a good read for all of you >///< It's so tricky to write about characters fumbling for words, because I wind up fumbling for the very words myself. I really struggled with the last chapter because I worried that the interactions didn't flow naturally, and I've been doubly worried about this chapter because... well, it's important to me, I guess. On an unrelated note, I'm thinking that once I've finished the saga, I might go back and add titles to all of the chapters. Might come in handy. Can't really hurt it, right? I'm open to suggestions. 
> 
> Thank you all for bearing with my constant extensions of the project and all that. I swear to God the chapter after this one is _really_ the last chapter. Drafting has only just begun, so I'm sorry to say that it will take some time for me to finish. But hey: maybe I'll have it finished by Valentine's Day. Wouldn't that be nice? 
> 
> Thanks for reading!


	3. Chapter 3

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Sato no Hiroshi has enjoyed perfect, dreamless sleep each night for two years.  
> Until this night.

Ordinarily, a young acolyte spends the whole of his first two years serving his brothers at the monastery before he can learn so much as the basic breathing exercises. After just four months, however, an exception was made for Sato no Hiroshi. Around that time, he suffered his eighth nightmare, and it was the worst by far. One of the younger acolytes attempted to shake his screaming body awake, and the first thing Sato did on opening his eyes was strike the brother before he’d recovered his senses. Complaints mounted, and Hiroshi feared that the abbe would expel him to keep the peace.

Instead, the abbe gave him private tutelage. The usual order of training was lain aside, and Sato began to study the ways of meditation in earnest. It didn’t take long to start paying off, much to the relief of all parties concerned. Within the first week, Hiroshi learned how to build a wall around his dreaming self to ward off all creatures of nightmare. By the second week, he could alter the world around him to expel all danger, and by the end of the month, he could dream with lucidity.

Lucid dreaming entertained him considerably for almost half a year before Hiroshi found that he had no real use for it. It seemed a gross disruption to his mental training, and he could understand why the abbe was so reluctant to teach the technique to new acolytes. He said as much, and so the abbe taught him how his dreaming mind could be used as a tool to improve his waking meditation.

He discovered that the senses could be lain aside one by one, allowing for greater clarity of thought. When he slept, he no longer saw any visions of the past, nor specters of fear. Instead, he entered a state he privately thought of as “mind without senses.” Abstract concepts merely passed through his mind, and he floated in void as a formless consciousness. Every night, he enjoyed deep, untroubled sleep.

But that night, as Sato fell asleep and sank deep into the recesses of his mind, he became aware that the blackness before him was not the accustomed black of ‘non-ception.’ He was _seeing black_ reaching out on all sides. _Vision_. He lifted a hand up and looked at it. _Proprioception_.

He tried to take a deep breath and plunge himself back into Consciousness Without Senses, but his hand remained real and visible before his eyes. Either he was too tense to control his dreams, or… something was holding him there… He felt a stark moment of fear, then calmed himself and made a quick test of ability. He summoned a falling maple leaf into the air before him. Then he made the wind whip about and shape the stroke order for his family name (悟) in the air. It moved easily, with sharp turns and dips as though guided by the wind and a piece of string. Relieved, Sato made a swipe of the hand, and the leaf vanished into nothing.

Then, a sound drifted toward him. A ringing, tinkling, shaking sound interspersed with an occasional, hollow thump. He fancied he could almost recognize it. Sato turned about, trying to find the source of the noise. As he spotted it, the tension faded from him all at once.

A little ways off, there was a girl in a lovely purple kimono, dancing and shaking a small tambourine. By degrees, the dance brought her closer, and Hiroshi saw that she had a pair of dark, iridescent butterfly wings sprouting from her back. At intervals, they would flutter enough to lift her an arm-span off the ground. She would perform a little twirl, alight, and sway so far to the one side that she seemed about to topple.

When she was close enough for Hiroshi to hear the tune she was humming, the girl opened her eyes and smiled at him. “Good evening, Sato no Hiroshi-san,” she said sweetly and tapped the tambourine twice against her wrist. “My name…” she gave the instrument another tap and swayed elegantly to the left, “is Kochou.” She hopped up to eye level with Sato, spun twice in the air, then shook the tambourine out to one side as she descended to the floor and bowed gracefully. The ringing stopped. “A pleasure to meet you!”

It occurred to Hiroshi that he didn’t feel as surprised as he probably ought. Then again, this _was_ a dream. Why should anything at all startle him? He returned the butterfly-girl’s bow with smiling courtesy. “A pleasure to meet you as well, Kochou-chan. Your dance is the prettiest thing I’ve dreamt about in years.” It was true, strictly speaking.

She beamed at the compliment. “Thanks so much, Sato-san!” Though still smiling, her eyes suddenly became very focused and intent. “My dance serves a purpose, Sato-san. I use it to guide souls through the Dream Nexus so that they don’t lose their way.”

“Oh, I see.” Hiroshi had never heard of the Dream Nexus before, but it seemed to make perfect sense in any case.

Kochou nodded. “I have guided a soul here to your dream space. She carries an important message, but she needs your permission to enter.”

A slight knot of anxiety formed in the pit of Hiroshi’s stomach. One detail held his curiosity. “She?”

The girl nodded again, and her brow crinkled seriously. “Special circumstances have made allowance for the two of you to meet, but her time is limited. Will you hear her message, Sato no Hiroshi-san?”

_What have I got to lose? It’s not like I’m losing sleep for it?_ “Alright. I suppose I’ll hear her out.” He half expected it to be Haruko, come to ask him to return to Kyoto. Or perhaps Auntie Karin was coming to scold him for leaving so suddenly. If it was someone unsavory, he could always banish them and wake himself up.

Kochou’s smile returned, and she lifted up her tambourine. “I’ll let her right in. Good night, Sato-san, and pleasant dreams to you.” With a soft flutter of her wings, she stepped back into the same dance she’d been performing when she came in. Now, though, she was moving back toward a door that had appeared inexplicably behind her, singing a soft ‘shan-shan-shan,’ as she went. As Kochou drew near, the door slid open on its own. Then she gave a cheery wave and drifted through, leaving Hiroshi feeling rather bemused. As Kochou passed out of sight, a woman in a white yukata emerged from the open door.

The shock of who he saw should have woken him up. The charm of Kochou’s dance couldn’t soften the blow. The knowledge that this was all a dream did not diminish his astonishment. Three years of meditation and training in the ways of Zen under the head abbot himself had not prepared him for this. Nothing could have.

Stunned, he didn’t notice himself stepping forward on shaking legs. He staggered badly, and the woman reached him just in time to catch hold of his elbows and keep him on his feet. He stared at her. His eyes roved over every inch of her familiar face. His gaze lingered on the long, white scar on her neck. Then it drifted back up to her eyes, and he felt tears dripping off the bottom of his jaw.

“M… Mom?”

Naomi’s smile never faltered, even though she seemed to be holding back tears of her own. She rubbed her hand across Hiroshi’s cheek, mopping up the streaking tears. “Hey… Hey there, Hiro-tan.” It was the same tone she always used to soothe him after he’d been crying. As a child, whenever he woke up from a nightmare, that tender voice had always been there to lull him back to sleep.

An instant later, Hiroshi was a sobbing mess with his forehead pressed into his mother’s yukata. He felt her arms encircle him and her hand stroke his head softly. He dimly realized that he had hair in this dream. It wasn’t the long, obsidian hair he’d had after his return from the Underworld, but the shaggy dark hair he’d had when she was still alive. Her fingers were so comforting as they combed through his wavy tresses.

“Shh, shh, it’s okay,” Naomi whispered as she held her child in her arms. The front of her yukata was soon stained gray with tears. “It’s okay, sweetie.” She hugged his trembling shoulders close. “I’m here.”

“I’m sorry…” Hiroshi keened hopelessly. “I’m so… so sorry, Mother.”

“No!... No, Hiro-tan, don’t say that.” Naomi’s voice was a magnificent quartet of strength, bewilderment, gentleness, compassion. She held Hiroshi’s face between her palms and made him look up into her caring eyes. “My sweet Hiro-tan, you have absolutely nothing to be sorry for.” Only the peacock hue of his eyes showed any change in her son’s features. In every other regard, he was exactly the same boy she’d kissed goodbye on his last day in Umi no Mura.

Hiroshi still sobbed with despair. “But Mom… I… while I was with Yasha, I…”

“I know,” Naomi said, brushing Hiroshi’s bangs out of his eyes. “My old memories were given back to me for one night. Susabi-sama has told me all that’s happened to you.”

Hiroshi sniffled. “Who… who’s Susabi-sama?”

Naomi opened her mouth to answer, but hesitated. Then she laughed a little and shook her head. “It would take too long to explain.” She looked down at her son and saw the misery etched deep into his face. “Oh, Hiro-tan…”

Sensing that he didn’t want to be on his feet any longer, Naomi helped lower her son onto a cushion that suddenly appeared, then sat herself on another which materialized beside it. A cobblestone wall appeared behind them, and Hiroshi’s mother leaned herself against it while he curled up under the crook of her arm. She snuggled him close and kissed the top of his head. “My Hiroshi… You have nothing to feel sorry for. You hear me? Nothing.” She jostled him softly.

Hiroshi sniffed again. “But… I…”

Naomi interrupted, “You did the best you could, Hiro-tan. That’s all anyone can ask of you.” When he still appeared disconsolate, she added, “Hiro-tan, the entire massacre of Umi no Mura lasted about 25 minutes from start to finish. Half of us hardly knew what was going on before the end came. But _you_ were in that beast’s clutches for six years. _Six whole years_!” She clutched her son tight, as though wishing that she could pull him bodily out of those memories.

“My Hiro-tan… No one should ever have to suffer what you endured. Most would have broken long before then. But you held out. You clung to your sanity, and in the end, you prevailed!” She lifted his chin. “None of us were tested as you were. How heartless would we be if we blamed you for what you had to do to survive in that hopeless place? Can you honestly imagine me saying…” Her mouth hung open for a while. Slowly, her eyes filled with tears, and she shook her head. “No… It’s too cruel. I can’t even imagine myself saying it.”

“Mom…” Hiroshi slowly reached up and touched the teardrop that rolled down her cheek.

Naomi smiled and gently took hold of her boy’s hand. “Hiro-tan… I love you. Your father and I are so proud of you. Your brothers and sister wanted to come too and hold you one last time. You should have seen how they protested when it was explained only one of us could go.” Her eyes unfocused for a moment. “Oh! That reminds me. Your little sister wanted me to give you this.” She bestowed a small kiss on Hiroshi’s lips.

He smiled gratefully and squeezed Naomi a little tighter. “Thank you. Um… Can you give her this for me?” Timidly, he reached up, rested his palm atop his mother’s head, and rubbed affectionately.

Naomi let out a delighted bark of a laugh. “Yes, Hiro-tan, I’ll be sure to pass that along.” Then she sighed forlornly. “We’ll have to forget about it afterward, but… you’ll know I did it, at least. I suppose that’s part of why loved ones are left behind. To cherish such memories a little while longer.”

Hiroshi smiled at that… and then frowned slightly. “But Mom… I still don’t understand. How did you know to look for me? Who… arranged this?”

“Ah…” Naomi pursed her lips thoughtfully, considering the time she had to budget. “Well, to make a long story short… It seems that some onmyoji woman – an associate of Abe no Seimei if I heard right – knew something of your distress and interceded for you.” She offered a wry smirk. “It seems my Hiro-tan has become quite the social climber after all.”

Hiroshi blushed at that. “She… I just…”

But Naomi waved the comment aside. “The ruling was that Takamagahara[i] had committed a grievous oversight by not intervening when you were Yasha’s prisoner. As such, you were owed some form of compensation. They temporarily restored the memory of all your family members and asked us to appoint one person to give you a final visit.”

She waited just long enough to let it sink in, then lifted her son’s shoulders and had him sit in front of her. “But time is limited. Much of my allotted time was spent in making the arrangements, and there are some things we need to talk about before I go.”

Hiroshi knew at once that this was too important for delay. He wiped the tears from his face, sat up straight, and gave his mother his full attention. “Okay.”

“First…” Her voice was still soft and motherly, but now it had a business-like edge to it. “Why did you decide to go to a monastery?”

Hiroshi felt sure from her tone that she already knew or suspected the answer, but he couldn’t tell if she disapproved or not. “Because… I wanted to be able to control my nightmares… and other… things.” Naomi nodded. “Also, I thought it would be somewhere that my longevity wouldn’t frighten people.”

Naomi nodded again. “And?”  
_And?_ Hiroshi was confused for a moment, and then it hit him. He lowered his head. “And I… thought it would be a suitable way to carry out penance for… the things I said, did, and…” he swallowed, “… _thought_ during my captivity.”

Naomi nodded seriously, then leaned back a little, her eyes softening. “So… Now you have gained the self-control and stability that you sought. You know now that your family holds you blameless; if there was anything you’d done that needed forgiving, it’s as good as forgiven. Knowing all this, do you intend to stay?”

The question surprised Hiroshi. He’d have liked to give a more nuanced answer, but there just wasn’t time for anything but the bare, emotional truth. “I mean… I received an offer to go live with Inomata no Keita…” He saw his mother smile knowingly at his mention of the rugged younger man. “But… we’re both men, and…”

Naomi shrugged. “So was your Uncle Jiro.”

Hiroshi blinked. “Uncle Jiro? But… wasn’t he…”

“Married to your Aunt Retsuko, yes. Officially. Our father insisted on it. But Jiro only had eyes for Daisuke.”

Hiroshi’s mouth dropped open in shock. “But Jiro _hated_ Daisuke! There was that scandal-”

Naomi cut him off, shaking her head. “Oh, he _was_ angry at Daisuke for that. He was furious with both of them – but only because they’d gotten caught, and that made it harder for Daisuke to visit. Daisuke had been sleeping with both of them for years. Jiro and Retsuko’s marriage was never even consummated. Both of her children were Daisuke’s.” She gave an ironical snort. “Little brother once confided to me that their mutual love for Daisuke was about the only thing he and Retsuko had in common. They’d never have lasted if not for him.”

Hiroshi’s lips moved noiselessly for a while, then, “… I… had no idea.”

Naomi shrugged. “Jiro only confided in me, and Retsuko never told a soul. I wouldn’t even be telling _you,_ except that now we’re…” Abruptly, she shook her head as though to clear it, then fixed Hiroshi with a stern glare. “Enough of your distractingly interesting questions!” She put her hands on her hips in mock severity. “I, the ghost of your mother, have _not_ been granted this one night alone to visit you in a dream in order to catch up on old family gossip!”

This was so unexpectedly funny that Hiroshi couldn’t help himself. A snorting laugh escaped him, and then he was giggling too furiously to stop.

Finally Naomi, though grinning herself, leaned forward and flicked her son painfully on the ear. “Pay attention, Hiroshi! We still have much to talk about!”

Hiroshi got a grip and sat up straight, forcing a semblance of sobriety into his countenance. “Yes, Mother. I’m listening.”

“Now…” She cleared her throat. “This Keita who you fancy so much.” A pink blush touched Hiroshi’s cheeks, but Naomi was gratified to see that he remained obediently silent. “He seems like a very good man to me.”

Hiroshi waited a good while for his mother to add something else, but she didn’t. “He… He is,” he hedged.

“He’s got an awfully long road back to Kyoto if he takes it alone.”

Hiroshi felt his blush deepening. Naomi’s eyebrow was arched suggestively. “Do you… think-”

“I haven’t come here to tell you what to do,” Naomi said, presenting her empty palms. “I’m just saying that he’s made a good impression to me. Susabi-sama gave me a glimpse of the look in his eyes while he was looking at you, and…” She hugged herself, grinning. “I couldn’t have been more tickled. It was _my son_ he was giving that bright-eyed stare!”

“Mom!” Hiroshi covered his face, embarrassed. In the back of his head, he began to think very unflatteringly about this ‘Susabi-sama,’ whoever the rascally voyeur was.

“My point is, Hiro-tan… You came to this monastery for a reason. For _specific_ reasons. And from where I sit, it would _seem_ that all those reasons have either been fulfilled or rendered moot. You’ve healed marvelously. You don’t _have_ to stay here anymore.” She shrugged. “Unless you want to. You can always come back if things don’t work out.” 

Hiroshi gave this some thought. “That’s… true, I suppose…” Then he looked down at his left hand and frowned. “Then again… I’m not so sure.”

Naomi looked at her son’s hand as well, pursing her lips in thought. Then she reached out toward it. “Might I have a look?” Hiroshi gave her his hand, and she looked over it carefully, examining each finger in turn like a physician. “Hm, that’s curious,” she mumbled eventually.

“What is?” Hiroshi asked with apprehension.

“Well I’m a ghost, you see. I’ve been on both sides of the Sanzu River, and my eyes can now see things that other’s don’t. And yet…” She spread his fingers out carefully. “I don’t see the Red String of Fate on your finger. Not a trace of it.” She let go of her boy’s hand and crossed her arms, puzzling. “Yet in spite of that, this whole situation has – some might suggest – an unmistakable flavor of destiny to it.”

Hiroshi had been staring at his bare, scar-covered palm since his mother had let go of it, but he looked up at these words. Naomi was looking at him very seriously. She started to count off on her fingers. “Consider, it’s been 800 days since your last nightmare.” _Was it?_ He hadn’t kept count. “A full decade has passed since the fire. Then, just as Keita is drawing close, an onmyoji a hundred miles away entreats Takamagahara to make amends to you. Your mother’s earthly memories are given to her for one day so she can visit you, and it _just happens_ to be the night after your sweetheart shows up unannounced and all but proposes to you.”

Finally, she made the same open-palmed gesture as before, as though physically letting go of the matter. “These could just be coincidence. Coincidences _do_ ‘just happen,’ whatever anyone else might say.” She leaned forward conspiratorially. “But if anything, that makes it all the more special. Destiny will drag a one kicking and screaming if an event is pre-ordained, but opportunity is a flighty visitor that will leave if not let in.” She leaned back. “All I’m saying is… you have too long a life ahead of you to live overburdened by regret.”

She had a point. It hearkened back somewhat to the conversation he’d had with the onmyoji Yao Bikuni. She, too, had told him he should try to live his life to the fullest. Even so… “I’m scared, though,” he admitted. He stared absently at the cobblestone wall beside them. “It… I don’t have words for the pain I felt… losing you and everyone who ever meant anything to me. I don’t want to go through that again. But I’ll have to if I let myself fall in love.”

“Hiro-tan…” Naomi reached out and lifted his chin, guiding his gaze to her eyes. “Do you regret that you had a family?” she asked reproachfully. “Would you rather that you’d never known any of us to spare yourself that pain?”

“No! Never!” Hiroshi blurted, mortified by the thought.

Naomi let go and leaned back, gaze softening. “I didn’t think so. It’s true – if you never loved any of us, you would have been spared a lot of pain. But who would you be then? You would be like Yasha, alone and without conscience. Less than a person.” Her words had their intended effect. She could see him digesting it – some of his protective shell was thinning. “My son.”

She scooted closer, then rested one hand on the back of his head and pressed the other against his chest. “This is what we mean when we say that the ones we loved never truly leave us. _Who you are_ is made up in part of your experiences with us. Your family. Your village. We’ve shaped you, and you shaped us in return. Even though we’ve been gone for more than a decade, we are still in you. I can see it. As long as you are who you are, nobody who’s loved you will ever truly be gone.” 

Fresh tears came to Hiroshi’s eyes. He held on to his composure with an effort, but the tears were such wonderful catharsis. Finally, he wiped his cheek and smiled a little anxiously. “Then… would you really be alright with me… marrying Kei?”

“Don’t ask me. I’m dead,” Naomi said, affecting a flippant attitude. Then she offered her son a warm smile. “But even if I _were_ alive, I’d be honored to call him a son of mine.”

Hiro’s heart beat a little faster. “Even… even though it means the Sato line will have no more offspring?”

Naomi’s face was so astonished she looked almost angry. “Are you _actually_ concerned about that? Why did you become a monk if that was the case?”

“I…” A hot flush of embarrassment lanced up Hiroshi’s neck, and he couldn’t speak.

But Naomi just laughed at his chagrin. “It’s fine, Hiro-tan! Maybe if I were still alive, I’d lament not getting to see your children. But even then, I could have just asked your brothers give me extra grandchildren on your behalf. I’m sure you’ll have plenty of opportunities to honor the family name in other ways. And for what it’s worth… I feel proud of you already.”

Hiroshi smiled gratefully. At last, his mind was made up. “Okay. I think I know what to do.”

At this, Naomi smiled wide. She held open her arms, and her son hugged her tightly again. As she rested her chin on his shoulder, her smile took on a note of sadness. She pressed him tight, and though her eyes grew momentarily damp, she forced herself not to weep. _My son deserves to remember me smiling at our last encounter._

While she still had the chance, Naomi whispered, “The demon’s ties to you have been severed. You’re not bound by him anymore. You’re completely free.” Hiroshi heard this, and then he squeezed her back with profound gratitude.

At last, they separated, smiling at one another. Naomi glanced off into the distance for a moment and heaved a sigh of relief. “Thank goodness! I wasn’t sure we’d have time to get through everything. But we still have a couple minutes remaining.”

Hiro considered this. His first thought was that he should use the time to memorize his mother’s face carefully. Presently, however, a thought occurred to him. “In that case, Mom… can I ask you a question?”

“Of course!” Naomi said brightly.

Hiroshi touched himself on the neck, just right of the jugular vein. “That scar on your neck… Where did it come from? I’ve heard three different accounts, but I never did learn which one was right.”

A broad, cunning grin stretched Naomi’s mouth wide. One of her canines was slightly crooked, jutting forward to give the smile a fang-like aspect. “Is that so?” she said slowly. She considered for a moment. “I wasn’t aware that this little scar was such a sensation. What stories have you heard? I’m _dying_ to know.”

Hiroshi bit his lip. “Is… do we have enough time?”

“If you hurry,” Naomi said in a lilting tone. “Now tell me quickly, Hiro-tan! It’ll _haunt_ me forever if I don’t hear them.”

After losing a valuable few seconds reeling from his mother’s terrible pun, Hiroshi hurried into the recitation. “Well… Uncle Jiro once told me it was from a time that your stepmother tried to kill you for stealing her socks.”

Naomi gave an indelicate snort, then covered her mouth as she gave vent to a fit of giggling.

Hiroshi couldn’t help grinning as well. “Dad said that as a girl, you once snuck up on a kitsune and yanked one of its tails. In retaliation, the other tail lashed out like a whip and cut you.”

His mother rolled her eyes. “What an imagination that man has.”

Hiroshi shrugged. “But Auntie Junko said you got it back when you and Dad were still early in your courtship. She said you two were threatened by bandits out in the woods, but you stole one of their swords and defended Dad from them. That scar on your neck was the only scratch you got.”

At this, Naomi rolled backward, clapping her hands and cackling delightedly. “Oh, I _wish_ that were the truth! That’s my favorite out of the lot!”

Hiro smiled back, chuckling a little. “So? Which one is it?”

Naomi sat back up and fought to regain her composure. “Well… none of them, as it turns out. It actually happened-”

Hiroshi opened his eyes without a trace of drowsiness. He sat up. Clear moonlight streamed in through the window, illuminating the sleeping bodies of the dozen other monks in the dormitory. A moth fluttered out through the open window. Hiroshi could feel the streaks of tears, now dried and sticky upon his cheeks. Absently, he touched at his neck, just right of the jugular vein. “What… so what…” he whispered.

A grin crept across his lips. He started giving vent to a breathy giggle. Then it rose into a constant titter. Then it grew into a full, belly-shaking laugh that disturbed the rest of the sleepers around him. Still, Hiroshi couldn’t stop himself. He leaned against the wall and held his belly while he laughed and laughed.

Several of the brothers glared at him disapprovingly, but a few were giving him interested smirks. The adept sleeping nearest to him propped himself up on an elbow and asked wryly, “Care to share what’s so funny with the rest of us?”

But Sato cackled even harder and shook his head helplessly. “I… I can’t…” he said weakly. “I… I don’t even know it, myself!” This last, he managed to get out in a single burst before falling back and howling with amusement. By the time he managed to calm down – a full two minutes later – his infectious joy had replaced most of the scowls with faint smirks.

But even then, the others didn’t laugh. No, the laughter was his alone.

Half an hour before dawn, once the rest of the monks had gone back to sleep, Hiroshi snuck out of bed, dressed himself in one of the warmer robes, and started making his way toward the gate. The air was fresh and clean, and his blood felt vibrant with energy. His heart leapt as a raspy voice suddenly lashed out from behind.

“How dare you!”

Hiroshi turned around with dread to see the abbe standing behind him. The old man had managed to sneak up on him without making a sound. But in spite of the stern tone, the abbe’s creased and pruned old face was pulled into a warm smile. “Trying to slink off and not even tell a fond old man goodbye? If I hadn’t taught you myself, I’d say that manners were the only earthly tether you’d managed to relinquish in your time here.”

The pretty young man gave him an apologetic smile. “I’m sorry, Abbe. You’re right. I was being too hasty.”

The abbe shrugged, stepping close to Hiroshi and holding out a bulging knapsack. “I had wondered if you were going to leave us or not. I’m actually a little glad this day has come.”

Sato accepted the bag with no small surprise. Beneath a warm, woolen blanket, the knapsack was stuffed to capacity with vegetables. Quietly, Hiroshi marveled at how heavy it was. The old man had held it out as if it weighed no more than a paint brush. “You knew?”

“No, but I did… _suspect_. I could tell during our first interview that you didn’t really have the right sort of disposition to make a good Buddhist. But you were deeply wounded, and it was only right that I should help you however I could.” His eyes twinkled fondly. “You have a very bright soul, young Sato. It’s been very pleasant getting to stand near it for so long. Perhaps I’ll have the chance to see it again.”

Hiroshi smiled, and the two exchanged a formal bow. “Thank you, Abbe.”

“Ah, just one more thing!” the abbe said before Sato could turn around. “While I was coming back from my walk in the garden, I heard a loud crack beneath one of the temple steps. It sounded as if the board had just given out, and yet the plank was unmarred. When I looked beneath it to check for damage, I found this.” He held out his aged hand and showed Hiroshi a knotted cord, and a lump of bright blue coral broken into six pieces. “Hardly a minute after I found it, you started braying like you’d just heard a joke for the first time in your life. Do you know anything about this?”

Hiroshi was quite surprised by the sight. He’d completely forgotten to take the necklace out of its hiding place.

At length, he smiled. No urge to pick up the broken fragments even touched him. “Yes,” he stated casually. “It’s just… something I used to feel very attached to.”

Keita stepped out of the inn still rubbing the sleep from his eyes. His head was fuzzy from the dozen strange and unmemorable dreams that had played past him in the night. “Still so much to do…” he muttered. It would probably be best to get a new pair of sandals, if he wanted them to last all the way back to Kyoto. He also needed to check if anyone around was selling salt, though it might be too expensive this far from the coast.

He stopped abruptly. A man of nearly 30, wearing monk’s attire and looking no older than 18, stood before him. His marble skin, pearly teeth, and shaved scalp all accentuated the ethereal effect given by his eyes – iridescent and shining like the coat of a peacock. He gave Keita a nervous smile. Keita held his breath. All fatigue seemed to have left him. He didn’t dare to hope that this was anything but another strange dream.

Then Hiroshi spoke timidly. “If I help you get ready, is there any chance we can leave before noon?” There was a long silence, punctuated by the clucking of a hen several streets over.

Keita sprang forward and swept the older man up in a tight bearhug. Hiroshi gave a sprightly hop at the last second and allowed himself to be lifted off the ground, securing his arms around Kei’s shoulders. Kei turned two full circles, looking up with joyous amazement at the man in his arms. Then, just as the first rays of sunlight came lancing down from over the treetops, they pressed their lips together. The sound of a hopeful, double heartbeat echoed between their chests.

THE END

[i] Takamagahara – The dwelling place of the heavenly deities in Shinto lore, roughly analogous to the Greek Olympus.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I embarked on this project more than a year ago. At the time, if you can believe it, I thought this was going to be just a short story. I originally envisioned a story in three parts - a beginning, middle, and end as it were. And now... here we are. 
> 
> I hope you all won't think less of me for saying that I've been thinking about this final chapter and getting incredibly emotional lately. It seems so childish to say that I've gotten all teary-eyed in my car while thinking about all my imaginary friends, but... this is where I find myself. It's been a long journey. Now I feel... happy. Like I've accomplished something. Like I've given the world something I thought was worth taking the time to fashion. 
> 
> Thank you all so much for your support, for your readership, for your interest... for everything. Thank you for encouraging me to keep going. Thank you for letting me know that there are people out there who give a damn what I have to say. Thank you for... deciding that it mattered to you whether I stopped or kept going. Truly, sincerely, without arrogance, without pretense - I feel honored by all of you. Thank you. 
> 
> And now... I guess there are still other things for me to write. I still owe my spouse the other half of a story I promised long ago. In the meantime... I'll still be posting on my twitter occasionally. If anybody wants to connect with me there, I would be grateful for the company. My handle is @IsuSeal 
> 
> Till next time!


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